April 18, 2018

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April 18, 2018

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Jet blows an engine; woman nearly sucked out The engine on a Southwest Airlines plane is inspected as it sits on the runway at the Philadelphia International Airport after it made an emergency landing in Philadelphia, Tuesday, April 17, 2018. Associated Press Page 4

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Wednesday 18 April 2018

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Trump says U.S. and N. Korea talking at 'extremely high levels'

In this Feb. 10, 2017, file photo, U.S. President Donald Trump, right, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stand on stage together at the conclusion of their joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

Associated Press

By JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER Associated Press PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) —

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. and North Korea are holding direct talks at "extreme-

ly high levels" in preparation for a potential summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump and Kim have not spoken directly.

Trump appeared to answer in the affirmative to that question when asked about the talks at his private Mar-a-Lago club, where he is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "Let's leave it a little bit short

of that," he said later, adding, "We have had talks at the highest level."

Trump also confirmed that North and South Korea are working to negotiate an end to hostilities before next week's meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jaein. The meeting will be the third inter-Korean summit since the Koreas' 1945 division.

"They do have my blessing to discuss the end of the war," said Trump, who welcomed Abe to his Florida resort on Tuesday.

Trump is looking to hold his own summit with Kim in the next two months and said five locations are under consideration. The president would not disclose the sites but said the U.S. was not among them.

The proposed summit follows months of increasingly heated rhetoric over the North's nuclear weapons program.

"We have had direct talks at very high levels — extremely high levels — with North Korea," Trump said.

"We'll either have a very good meeting or we won't have a good meeting," he added. "And maybe we won't even have a meeting at all, depending on what's going in. But I think that there's a great chance to solve a world problem."

The president did not answer shouted questions about whether he has spoken with Kim. Kim's offer for a summit was initially conveyed to Trump

by South Korea last month, and the president shocked many when it was announced that he had accepted. U.S. officials have

indicated over the past two weeks that North Korea's government has communicated directly with Washington that it is ready to discuss its nuclear weapons program.

Abe, who has voiced fears that short- and mediumrange missiles that pose a threat to Japan might not be part of the U.S. negotiations, praised Trump on Tuesday for his bravery in agreeing to meet with the North Korean dictator.

"I'd like to commend Donald's courage in his decision to have the upcoming summit meeting with the North Korean leader," Abe said.

Trump took credit for the inter-Korean talks, saying, "Without us and without me, in particular, I guess you would have to say, they wouldn't be discussing anything."

North Korea has long sought a peace treaty with the U.S. to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War. But it is unusual for the North to seek to broach the issue directly with South Korea rather than with Washington. The armistice that ended the fighting was signed by the United Nations Command — the U.S.-led forces in the conflict — North Korea and China. South Korea was a member of the U.N. Command but was not a direct signatory.

The U.S. has traditionally sought to resolve the dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons program before addressing the North's demands for a peace treaty, which the isolated, authoritarian nation views as a means to ensuring its security. q

U.S. NEWS A3

Wednesday 18 April 2018

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U.N. ambassador, White House quarrel over timing on sanctions

By JILL COLVIN and ZEKE MILLER PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Tuesday fired back against a Trump administration official who said she was suffering from "momentary confusion" when she announced new sanctions against Russia were imminent, saying, "With all due respect, I don't get confused."

A striking intra-administration quarrel played out in public when National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters during a briefing in Florida that Haley "got ahead of the curve" when she said the U.S. would be slapping new sanctions on Russia on Monday in retaliation for the country's support for Syria's Assad government after its latest suspected chemical attack.

Kudlow said additional sanctions are under consideration but have yet to be implemented. Of Haley, he said, "There might have been some momentary confusion about that."

Haley had said Sunday during an appearance on "Face the Nation" that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would be announcing new sanctions directed at companies associated with Syria's chemical weapons program on Monday, "if he hasn't al-

ready."

But Monday came and went without an announcement.

On Tuesday, following Kudlow's remark that she must have been confused, Haley said in a statement to Fox News: "With all due respect, I don't get confused."

The dispute between Haley's team and the White House had been playing out largely behind the scenes since Haley's initial comments. The White House has been struggling to explain Haley's remarks amid reports that Trump put the brakes on the new sanctions. Several administration officials have disputed that characterization, saying Haley was out of the loop.

One senior administration official said that, under the plan conceived last week, the sanctions would have been announced Friday night, at the same time U.S., French, and British forces launched a missile strike on Syrian President Bashar Assad's chemical weapons facilities. But the sanctions were not ready in time for Trump's Friday night statement, so they were delayed.

The official said a decision was then made to announce the sanctions as an answer to Russia's response to the strikes. But that plan was reevaluated and then put on hold over the weekend as it became clear that Russia's response was less robust than anticipated. The official was not authorized to discuss private administration deliberations publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

On Capitol Hill, House

Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., applauded the administration Tuesday as having "moved miles in the right direction" on Russia policy.

"Not only did we scuttle the reset, not only are we now sanctioning Russian citizens, not only are we sanctioning Russian oligarchs, we're sanctioning Russia itself. q

In this April 13, 2018, photo, Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, speaks during a Security Council meeting at United Nations headquarters.

Associated Press

A4 U.S.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS

1 dead after jet blows an engine; woman nearly sucked out

By ALEXANDRA VILLARREAL and DAVID KOENIG Associated Press PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Southwest Airlines jet blew an engine at 32,000 feet and got hit by shrapnel that smashed a window, setting off a desperate scramble by passengers to save a woman from getting sucked out. She later died, and seven others were injured.

Passengers dragged the woman back in as the sudden decompression of the cabin pulled her part way through the opening, but she was gravely injured.

The pilot of the plane, a twin-engine Boeing 737 bound from New York to Dallas with 149 people aboard, took it into a rapid descent and made an emergency landing in Philadelphia as passengers using oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling said their prayers and braced for impact.

"I just remember holding my husband's hand, and we just prayed and prayed and prayed," said passenger Amanda Bourman, of New York. "And the thoughts that were going through my head of course were about my daughters, just wanting to see them again and give them a big hug so they wouldn't grow up without parents."

The dead woman was identified as Jennifer Riordan, a Wells Fargo bank executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

She was the first passenger killed in an accident involving a U.S. airline since 2009.

The seven other victims suffered minor injuries.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team of investigators to Philadelphia.

NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt said the engine will be taken apart and examined to understand what caused the failure. Photos of the plane on the tarmac showed a missing window and a chunk gone from the left engine, including part of its cover.

Passengers commended one of the pilots for her cool-headed handling

National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt briefs reporters at National Airport in in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, April 17, 2018, on the Southwest Airlines plane incident in Philadelphia.

Associated Press

of the emergency. She walked through the aisle and talked with passengers to make sure they were OK after the plane touched down.

"She has nerves of steel.

That lady, I applaud her," said Alfred Tumlinson, of Corpus Christi, Texas. "I'm going to send her a Christmas card, I'm going to tell you that, with a gift cer-

asleep near the back when she heard a loud noise and oxygen masks dropped.

"Everybody was crying and upset," she said. "You had a few passengers that were very strong, and they kept yelling to people, you know, 'It's OK! We're going to do this!'"

In a recording of conversations between the cockpit and air traffic controllers,

get her back in the plane, and they got her."

Another passenger, Eric Zilbert, an administrator with the California Education Department, said: "From her waist above, she was outside of the plane."

Passengers struggled to somehow plug the hole while giving the badly injured woman CPR. Passengers did "some pretty amazing things under some pretty difficult circumstances," Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said.

As the plane came in for a landing, everyone started yelling to brace for impact, then clapped after the aircraft touched down safely, Bourman said.

"We were very lucky to have such a skilled pilot and crew to see us through it," Zilbert said. "The plane was steady as a rock after it happened. I didn't have any fearing that it was out of control."

The last time a passenger

A Southwest Airlines plane sits on the runway at the Philadelphia International Airport after it made an emergency landing in Philadelphia, on Tuesday, April 17, 2018.

Associated Press

tificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome."

Tracking data from FlightAware.com showed Flight 1380 was heading west over Pennsylvania at about 32,200 feet (10 km) and traveling 500 mph (800 kph) when it abruptly turned toward Philadelphia.

Bourman said she was

an unidentified crew member reported that there was a hole in the plane and "someone went out."

Tumlinson said a man in a cowboy hat rushed forward a few rows "to grab that lady to pull her back in.

She was out of the plane.

He couldn't do it by himself, so another gentleman came over and helped to

died in an accident on a U.S. airliner was 2009 when 49 people on board and one on the ground were killed when a Continental Express plane crashed on a house near Buffalo, New York.

Southwest has about 700 planes, all of them 737s, including more than 500 737-700s like the one in

Tuesday's accident. It is the world's largest operator of the 737. The 737 is the bestselling jetliner in the world and has a good safety record.

Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said in Dallas that there were no problems with the plane or its engine when it was inspected Sunday.

The jet's CFM56-7B engines were made by CFM International, jointly owned by General Electric and Safran Aircraft Engines of France.

CFM said in a statement that the CFM56-7B has had "an outstanding safety and reliability record" since its debut in 1997, powering more than 6,700 aircraft worldwide.

Last year, the engine maker and the Federal Aviation Administration instructed airlines to make ultrasonic inspections of the fan blades of engines like those on the Southwest jet. The FAA said the move was prompted by a report of a fan blade failing and hurling debris. But it was unclear whether the particular engine that failed on Tuesday was covered by the directives.

"There's a ring around the engine that's meant to contain the engine pieces when this happens," said John Goglia, a former NTSB member. "In this case it didn't. That's going to be a big focal point for the NTSB — why didn't (the ring) do its job?"

In 2016, a Southwest Boeing 737-700 blew an engine as it flew from New Orleans to Orlando, Florida, and shrapnel tore a 5-by-16inch hole just above the wing. The plane landed safely. The NTSB said a fan blade had broken off, apparently because of metal fatigue.q

U.S. NEWS A5

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Special prosecutor appointed to defend Arpaio case ruling

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — A special prosecutor will be appointed in an appeal over the pardon of former metro Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio's conviction for disobeying a court order because President Donald Trump's Justice Department is now refusing to handle the case, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The U.S. 9th Circuit of ordered the appointment because the Justice Department lawyers who won the conviction have since declined to defend a court ruling that dismissed the case but did not erase Arpaio's criminal record after Trump issued the pardon.

Arpaio is a Trump ally, is running for a U.S. Senate seat and wants the court records related to his conviction expunged.

Legal advocacy groups that focus on free speech, democracy and civil rights had asked for the prosecutor and have mounted a challenge to Trump's pardon of the former six-term sheriff, a Republican who lost to a little-known Democratic challenger in 2016.

A federal judge last summer found Arpaio guilty of contempt of court for intentionally defying a 2011 court order that barred his traffic patrols targeting immigrants.

Arpaio, now running for the Senate seat by the outgo-

ing Jeff Flake, was accused of prolonging the patrols for 17 months to boost his successful 2012 re-election campaign.

Jack Wilenchik, a lawyer representing Arpaio, accused the appeals court of appointing a special prosecutor because it did not like the outcome of the case.

"To be appointing a new lawyer is really the 9th Circuit taking a position on the case, which it shouldn't be doing," Wilenchik said.

Arpaio said the president made the right decision in issuing his pardon.

"I am not guilty," Arpaio said. "To this day, I will say that."

The retired sheriff is appealing the lower-court ruling that refused to expunge his criminal record.

The groups opposed to Arpaio's pardon are using the same appeals process to challenge clemency for him.

In this Jan. 10, 2018, file photo, former Maricopa County Sheriff and U.S. Senate candidate Joe Arpaio speaks at his office in Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Associated Press

The pardon issued in late August spared the 85-yearold Arpaio a possible jail sentence.

Arpaio and his critics have complained that the case has been influenced by politics.

Arpaio maintains the criminal case was a political vendetta launched against him by the Obama administration over the sheriff's immigration crackdowns.

His critics have said the pardon was political repayment for Arpaio's endorsement of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Ten days before Arpaio's

2016 primary election in his last race for sheriff of Maricopa County, a judge who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush had recommended the criminal charge as part of racial profiling lawsuit over the sheriff's immigration patrols.

Another federal judge who was nominated by President Bill Clinton then filed the criminal charge against Arpaio about three months before Obama left office.

Prosecutors from Trump's Justice Department brought the case to trial last summer and won the conviction.q

A6 U.S.

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS

South Carolina's prisons among the deadliest in the U.S.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, left, address the media during a press conference following a prison riot at the Lee Correctional Institution Monday, April 16, 2018, in Columbia, S.C. Associated Press

By MEG KINNARD COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Twenty South Carolina prisoners have been killed at the hands of fellow inmates in the past 16 months. The staggering amount of violence, which includes the gang-fueled bloodshed that left seven prisoners dead and 22 injured this week at Lee Correctional Institution, has some legislators calling for more oversight and transparency at the state Department of Corrections.

At a news conference, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said officers stormed in and took the first of three dorms back from rioting prisoners about four hours after the melee began. He said the officers were assembled at the rural prison as quickly as possible and went in only when it was safe to do so.

After the institution was back under control, it then took more time to get in-

jured inmates to hospitals.

The prison is located 40 miles east of Columbia.

"It shouldn't take five hours to get in there and put some water on these fires," said state Rep. Justin Bamberg, a Democrat and lawyer whose clients include the families of several inmates who were attacked in previous instances.

Contraband cellphones and staffing shortages are often blamed for many of the department's woes. Stirling, who oversees 21 prisons and more than 19,000 inmates, has said he's hired some of the 500 corrections officers he needs, but stresses the need for funding more officers.

Sen. Gerald Malloy, whose district includes Lee Correctional, said the government has a responsibility to keep the prison population safe and thinks lawmakers need to look at whether cost savings in corrections has been efficient.

"The burden comes back to the General Assembly, what are you going to do?" he said.

Stirling - who served as thenGov. Nikki Haley's chief of staff before she appointed him to lead the prisons in 2013 - said his No. 1 security threat is cellphones, which gives inmates unfettered communication allowing them to commit crimes inside and outside of prison.

He said the riot started Sunday night as a gang war over territory, money and illegal items such as cellphones.

Stirling has urged the Federal Communications Commission to allow the prison to block or jam cellphone signals to prevent inmates from using them.

Violence at Lee and other institutions throughout South Carolina is not surprising, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster noted at the news conference. McMaster echoed Stirling's call

for the ability to jam cellphones in prison but didn't propose any other substantive alternatives. "We do the best we can," the governor said.

From 2001 to 2014, an average of 60 inmates died annually in state prisons across the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 2017, a dozen South Carolina inmates were killed by other inmates.

"That's staggeringly out of proportion," said John Pfaff, a Fordham law professor who tracks prison data. "It makes a prison that is supposed to be a secure facility - a place with no weapons, a place where you can't leave - as dangerous as living in the most dangerous city in America."

In February, an inmate killed a fellow prisoner at Lee, where this week's attack took place among inmates armed with homemade knives used to slash

and stab rival gang members. An inmate stabbed two officers in 2015. At Kirkland, another maximumsecurity prison, two inmates killed four prisoners last year in under an hour.

For the past few months, The Associated Press has been communicating with a Lee prisoner who used a contraband cellphone to offer insight into life behind bars. He said inmates there roam freely, have easy access to cellphones and drugs, and are often left to police themselves.

The inmate spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity because his cellphone is illegal and he fears retribution from other prisoners.

He described a facility run by gangs, and guards who take a hands-off approach because they fear for their own safety.

In the most recent incident, he told AP that officers stayed in a control booth for hours Sunday night, waiting for backup as inmates lay dying in pools of blood.

That echoes earlier anecdotes he shared about what happens whenever gang fights break out.

"The Crips and Bloods had a confrontation just a few feet from my cell door and, when the knives, machetes, axes, pipes and body armor came out, the cops were nowhere to be found," he wrote in February.

To get away from the fighting, the inmate said he stays in his cell. But the door lock has been broken for months, so he said he and others jam materials into the lock to try to keep others from coming in.

"ALL of the doors to the cells are broken," the inmate wrote. "At any time, I can let myself out of my cell, to do whatever it is that I would want to do."q

U.S. NEWS A7

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Stormy Daniels' big reveal: sketch of man who threatened her

By CATHERINE LUCEY Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Stormy Daniels injected fresh mystery into the sensational story of the president, the fixer and the porn star on Tuesday, releasing an artist's sketch of the man she says threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot to stay quiet about her sexual tryst with Donald Trump.

After teasing the reveal for more than a week, the adult film actress appeared on ABC's "The View" to unveil an image of the man she says menaced her and her young daughter and warned her in 2011 to keep quiet about a 2006 encounter with Trump. Upping the stakes, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, pledged a $100,000 reward for information leading to the man's identification.

While the mad internet scramble to identify the man added to the circus atmosphere surrounding the president's legal troubles, the development also kept a spotlight on what Trump views as an increasingly serious threat: the federal investigation into his longtime image protector.

Daniels says that Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, paid her $130,000 just before the 2016 election to keep quiet about her relationship with the GOP nominee. The case took on new significance last week when FBI agents raided Cohen's office, looking for information on topics including the payment to Daniels. Both Daniels and Cohen were in court in New York City on Mon-

day, as a U.S. District judge heard debate over what should happen to those records.

On Tuesday, Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, said she was speaking out because she was "done being bullied."

Recalling the alleged threat, Daniels said she and her daughter were approached in a parking lot by a man who said: "Oh it's a beautiful little girl, would be a shame if something happened to her mom.

Forget about this story, leave Mr. Trump alone."

Daniels said she did not report the threat at the time because she would have had to reveal the alleged affair and she was afraid.

"I didn't want everyone to know. I didn't want my family to find out that way. I didn't want my life to turn upside down," she said.

The artist's sketch depicts a white male in his 30s or 40s and carries a description of him as "lean but fit." The image quickly prompted a flurry of online speculation about the person's identity, with Twitter commentators wildly comparing the image to a number of celebrities, including football player Tom Brady, musician Jon Bon Jovi and actor Willem Dafoe.

Even some Trump allies got in on the action. After a Twitter posting showed the sketch next to a photo of short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, the always camera-ready figure known as "the Mooch" joked that he wasn't tall enough to match the de-

scription: "I thought the description said he was 6' 2"! I am all good."

Daniels insisted she remembered the years-prior parking lot encounter vividly, in part because the man was "sort of handsome."

Building suspense, Avenatti recently tweeted a photo he said showed Daniels sitting with a sketch artist. He set up a suitably pugnacious email address to receive information from tipsters — idthethug@gmail. com — and said later Tuesday that he had already received hundreds of tips.

After Daniels first alleged on CBS several weeks ago that she had been threatened, a lawyer for Cohen demanded that she publicly apologize to his client for suggesting Cohen was involved. Daniels responded by filing a revised federal lawsuit accusing Cohen of defamation. The White House has also said Trump does not believe any of Daniels' claims.

An attorney for Cohen did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Daniels, currently on a national strip-club tour, said she has gained fame from her alleged encounter with Trump but "this isn't what I want to be known for." She also said she did not name her tour "Make America Horny Again" — a play on Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. She called it "cheesy" and said the idea came from one of the clubs where she made an appearance.

While she's getting more attention, Daniels said, much

This artist's drawing released by attorney Michael Avenatti, reports to show the man that the adult film actress Stormy Daniels says threatened her in a Las Vegas parking lot in 2011 to remain quiet about her affair with President Donald Trump.

Associated Press

of the experience has been "downright scary," adding that her daughter needs a tutor and she has engaged bodyguards.

Trump answered questions about Daniels for the first time recently, saying he had no knowledge of the payment made by Cohen

and didn't know where Cohen had gotten the money.

The White House has consistently said Trump denies the affair.

Asked about Trump's denials, Daniels was unmoved.

"I work in the adult business," she said. "And I'm a better actress than he is."q

A8 WORLD

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS

Suspect in Iceland’s ‘Big Bitcoin Heist’ escapes prison

By EGILL BJARNASON Associated Press REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — A prisoner in Iceland suspected of masterminding the theft of about 600 computers that were being used to mine bitcoin and other virtual currencies escaped custody and fled Tuesday on a passenger plane that a witness said also carried the remote North Atlantic nation’s prime minister.

Police said surveillance footage showed a suspect they identified as Sindri Thor Stefansson boarding a flight to Sweden at Iceland’s international airport in Keflavik. They said he traveled under a passport in someone else’s name.

“He had an accomplice,” Police Chief Gunnar Schram told Visir, an online news outlet in Iceland. “We are sure of that.”

Investigators think Stefansson left the low-security prison where he recently had been transferred through a window early Tuesday.

Guards did not report him missing until after the flight to Sweden had taken off..

Stefansson was among 11 people arrested earlier this

In this file photo taken on Jan. 17, 2018, a worker walks along a row of computer rigs that run around the clock ‘mining’ bitcoin inside the Genesis Mining cryptocurrency mine in Keflavik, Iceland.

year for allegedly stealing the powerful computer in Iceland’s biggest thefts.

The stolen equipment, which still is missing, has been valued at almost $2 million. Icelandic media have the case the “Big Bitcoin Heist.”

If the stolen equipment is used for its original purpose — to create new bitcoins

— the thieves could turn a massive profit in an untraceable currency without ever selling the items.

The escaped prisoner was being held at the Sogn prison in rural southern Iceland, located some 95 kilometers (59 miles) from the airport.

The prison is unfenced and inmates there have telephone and internet access.

Stefansson had been in custody since February. He was moved to the open prison 10 days ago, police said. A passenger on the flight that the escaped inmate allegedly caught to Sweden told national broadcaster RUV that Iceland’s prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, was also on the plane. Jakobsdot-

tir was among five Nordic prime ministers who met with India’s prime minister Tuesday in Stockholm, The prime minister’s presence, the witness said, was the only unusual thing about that flight.

The escape is yet another twist in a criminal case without parallel on the peaceful island nation with a population of 340,000 and one of the world’s lowest crime rates. Police commissioner Olafur Helgi Kjartansson told The Associated Press in March it was “a grand theft on a scale unseen before.”

Police have arrested 22 people altogether, including a security guard, without solving the burglaries.

Blessed with an abundance of renewable energy, Iceland has emerged as a popular base for large virtual currency companies that use massive amounts of electricity running the computers that create bitcoins.

Owners of the stolen computers have, in a rare public outreach, promised a $60,000 reward to anyone who can lead detectives to the stolen computers.q

Ex-chief of Hungary’s swim federation held in 1998 slaying

By PABLO GORONDI Associated Press BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Police arrested the former head of Hungary’s swimming federation after questioning him Tuesday in connection with the 1998 slaying of a business rival.

Authorities identified the man only as T. Gyarfas, saying he is suspected of ordering the killing of media mogul Janos Fenyo, who was fatally shot while his car was stopped at a Budapest traffic light.

Hungarian media said

the suspect is 69-year-old Tamas Gyarfas, who led the Hungarian Swimming Federation in 1993-2006 while also holding top positions in European and international swimming organizations and Hungary’s Olympic committee. He also was a key media figure after Hungary’s return to democracy in 1990.

Fenyo, who worked for years as a press photographer, launched a successful chain of video rental stores shortly after returning in 1987 from a stay in

the United States. Later, he began building a media company that grew to include popular magazines and newspapers as well as a cable TV channel.

He had a well-known rivalry with Gyarfas, who was the producer and occasional interviewer of “Napkelte” (Sunrise), state television’s widely watched morning program.

In the late afternoon of Feb. 11, 1998, Fenyo was shot numerous times with a Croatian-made submachine gun, which later was

recovered by police. The assassination shocked the country and speculation about its motive immediately centered on Fenyo’s legal and allegedly illegal business dealings.

A Slovak man, Jozef Rohac, was sentenced to life in prison last year for Fenyo’s murder, but the person who hired the gunman had not previously been identified. Police said that last month they met with a prison inmate identified only as T. Portik, who is currently serving a 13-year term for

ordering an underworld killing, to question him about suspected involvement in Fenyo’s slaying.

Gyarfas resigned as head of Hungary’s swimming federation in November 2016, just months before the country hosted the 2017 world championships, the largest sporting event ever held in the country.

A campaign for his ouster was led by three-time Olympic champion Katinka Hosszu, who called him a “most harmful factor” for Hungarian swimming.q

WORLD NEWS A9

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Report: China's Silk Road plan serves Beijing security goals

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer HONG KONG (AP) — A massive Chinese infrastructure program that Beijing says is aimed at promoting global trade and economic growth is actually intended to expand the country's political influence and military presence, according to a report issued Tuesday.

The report by the U.S.based research group C4ADS questions China's portrayal of the trilliondollar program, called the "Belt and Road Initiative," as strictly meant to promote economic development.

President Xi Jinping's signature foreign policy program, it is working to reinforce China's links to Southeast Asia, Europe and Africa through networks of roads, ports, railways, power plants and other infrastructure projects.

C4ADS, a nonprofit research institute that specializes in data analysis and security, examined official Chinese policy documents and unofficial reports by Chinese analysts to analyze the intentions of Beijing's ambitious economic development program, which seeks to connect 65 percent of the world's population in more than 60 countries.

Chinese officials say the initiative, also known as a modern "Silk Road" harkening back to maritime and land-based trade routes of centuries past, is driven by commercial considerations. They have rejected assertions that it is also meant to expand Beijing's global influence.

The report analyzed 15 Chinese-funded port proj-

ects in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Australia, Oman, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Djibouti and elsewhere in the IndoPacific region. It concluded that projects aren't driven by "win-win" economic development for the individual host countries, as Beijing claims.

"Rather, the investments appear to generate political influence, stealthily expand China's military presence and create an advantageous strategic environment in the region," it said.

China's Foreign Ministry rejected the findings, saying in a statement that Belt and Road is "essentially an economic cooperation initiative" promoting common development through infrastructure.

"China is not playing a geopolitical game," it said.

While there's no official policy document linking Belt and Road to China's national security interests, Chinese analysts have written that developing the program and pursuing Chinese security are "intimately linked," the report said. The analysts don't represent official thinking but the authors believe what they say could influence decisionmakers promoting the Belt and Road Initiative.

"Many of these observers recognize that a network of maritime logistics hubs throughout the Indo-Pacific, including ports, has the potential to change the region's strategic landscape, and several explicitly describe the role of infrastructure investment in Chinese grand strategy," the report said.

In this Nov. 13, 2016 file photo, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, center left, and Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif, fourth right, pray near Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Sun Weidong, center after inaugurating a new international trade route during a ceremony at the Gwadar port which links to China's western region, west of Karachi, Pakistan.

The projects shared characteristics that, taken together, pointed to China's security intent, the report said. These include being in strategic locations such as entrances to the contested South China Sea, in an apparent effort by Beijing to ease its worries about energy imports and potential blockades.

The port projects involve dual civilian-military use, Communist Party influence through the involvement of Chinese state-owned companies and control through equity stakes or long-term leases and a lack of transparency and expected profitability, it said.

Peter Cai, a fellow at Australia's Lowy Institute think tank who has studied Belt and Road, said he was

somewhat skeptical about claims China was using port projects to advance military goals, given the difficulty of coordinating so many different investments, some of which might involve "independent actors."

However, he said it's clear China's political influence would expand over countries it connects with.

The new links will increase economic activity, which means "you're going to have economic influence and we all know that economic influence easily translates into political leverage and power," Cai said.

One of the most controversial projects is in Sri Lanka, where the government signed a 99-year lease agreement for the unprof-

itable Hambantota Port, located along a busy Indian Ocean shipping lane, along with land to develop a free-trade zone, to a Chinese-controlled company, in a deal opposed by neighboring residents and monks.

"China appears to have established financial leverage over Sri Lanka through investment in alleged vanity projects" worth billions of dollars signed as Beijing courted the country's previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the report said.

Debt levels for those projects prevented his successor from extricating the country from the deals and pivoting Sri Lanka away from China's influence, it said. q

A10 WORLD

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS

To soften image, Kim Jong Un turns spotlight to sister, wife

By ERIC TALMADGE Associated Press TOKYO (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to be trying out a new tactic to boost the image of his authoritarian regime — he’s putting the spotlight on the women in his life.

Over the past few months, Kim has increasingly shared the stage with his younger sister, who became an instant celebrity as his envoy to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, and his wife, a former singer in her late 20s.

For sure, there is only one star of the show in North Korea, and that is Kim himself.

But the greater public role for Kim Yo Jong, his sister, and Ri Sol Ju, his wife, comes as Kim is embarking on a “charm offensive” — a series of summits and diplomatic moves that have significantly raised his international profile. The timing suggests he’s hoping to change the optics of his regime, if not its iron-fisted domestic policies, by presenting a softer face to the outside world.

The new look may be on display again later this month, when Kim is to sit down for his first summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. South Korean media suggest Kim is planning to bring his wife to the April 27 meeting on the south side of the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two nations.

If he does, it would be in keeping with the North’s new normal.

Ri accompanied Kim on his surprise trip to China for a summit with President Xi Jinping last month and was seen looking quite stylish as she beamed beside him at state functions. After Moon, Kim is scheduled to

In this April 14, 2018, file photo provided by the North Korean government, Ri Sol Ju claps while walking with her husband, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, right, in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Associated Press

meet with President Donald Trump in May or June, raising the possibility of a clickbait bonanza — Ri meeting her U.S. counterpart, Melania Trump.

But the time for that much exposure might not be quite ripe. North Korea has a somewhat complicated relationship with the first lady concept. Kim’s grandfather and father both had multiple significant others, and personal matters involving members of the Kim family are treated with the utmost discretion by the North’s propaganda machine.

Even so, Ri would seem to be a natural for the part.

She is poised, comfortable in the limelight and usually dressed in expensive outfits.

She trained in the performing arts from a young age, singing with the Unhasu Orchestra before she and Kim married, reportedly in 2009 or 2010, the year before Kim assumed power. A singer herself, it’s believed she is close to the members

of North Korea’s all-female pop group, the Moranbong Band, another Kim Jong Un creation.

Ri was among a select group of young women dispatched to South Korea to cheer for North Korea’s team at the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships, suggesting she comes from a family in good standing. She’s believed to be 28 years old. Little else is known about her.

Unlike Kim’s father — the identity of his mother was long kept a state secret — Kim has appeared with his wife fairly frequently since their first official outing together, to an amusement park in 2012. She was with him when former NBA star Dennis Rodman serenaded Kim with a birthday song before an exhibition basketball game in 2014.

A few extended absences were likely due to pregnancies. She and Kim reportedly have three children, though that, too, has never been officially confirmed.

Her real anointment may have come this week, when she was bestowed with a new honorific — “revered first lady.”

According to South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, that hasn’t been used by the North’s state media since 1974, when it referred to national founder Kim Il Sung’s second wife, Kim Song Ae. Previously, she was simply “comrade Ri.” Kim’s younger sister, meanwhile, has also entered the stage in a big way.

Her coming-out party came in February, when she became the first member of the North’s Kim dynasty to travel to South Korea, for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. She quickly proceeded to steal the show, looking almost regal as she held court with South Korean President Moon and other international dignitaries.

In one of the Games’ most telling moments, Moon stood to shake her hand as a joint North-South team

entered Olympic Stadium while U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who was also in the VIP box, sat stonefaced nearby.

At 30, Kim Yo Jong could well be her brother’s closest confidant, a role reminiscent of the relationship between Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his aunt, Kim Kyong Hui. She and Kim Jong Un lived in Switzerland in relative isolation for several years as children. An alternate to the ruling party’s powerful politburo since October last year, she is believed to be in charge of maintaining her brother’s public image and cult of personality.

Her public appearances before Pyeongchang were limited to occasional events where she was seen serving her brother. With her name almost never mentioned in the state media, and never with an explanation of her pedigree, it’s quite possible that until news of the Olympic visit was aired, most North Koreans had no idea who she was.

That’s certainly not so any longer. Her return from the South was front-page news, as was her place right beside her brother when a senior South Korean delegation made a follow-up visit in March.

On Sunday, she and wife Ri — looking as glamorous as ever — were back in the pages of the ruling party newspaper greeting a senior Chinese delegation and watching a performance of Giselle by China’s national ballet the night before.

That was also something of a landmark. It was possibly the only time the “revered first lady” has been featured by the state media attending an event without Kim Jong Un by her side.q

WORLD NEWS A11

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Israel, marking annual Memorial Day, comes to a standstill JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel marked its annual Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism on Tuesday with somber ceremonies and a one-minute siren that brought the country to a solemn standstill.

Sirens wailed at 8 p.m. across the country, prompting Israelis to stop in their tracks and stand silently with heads bowed to remember the dead. Another siren will ring out on Wednesday morning.

Memorial Day, which goes from sundown to sundown, is marked across the country by mournful ceremonies and visits to cemeteries by bereaved families.

Places of entertainment shut down and TV and radio stations broadcast war stories and melancholic music.

The main ceremony was held at Jerusalem’s West-

Israeli soldiers stand in formation as a siren sounds to mark the annual Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray in Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 17, 2018.

Associated Press

ern Wall on Tuesday evening and attended by Isra-

el’s president, military brass and grieving families.

This year’s commemoration has been marred by

a dispute between Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and a group of Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families holding a joint memorial ceremony for loved ones.

Lieberman refused to allow some of the Palestinian participants to enter Israel, prompting a court challenge by the group of bereaved families.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Lieberman’s decision, allowing for the joint ceremony to go ahead as planned. In response, Lieberman said the court “put on the same plane bereavement and terror, the murdered and the murderers.”

Memorial Day continues into Wednesday, ending at sundown with a sharp break into jubilant festivities celebrating 70 years since Israel’s creation.q

Niger may have arrested militant with ties to US ambush

By CARLEY PETESCH Associated Press NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger’s military has detained a suspect who it believes could be the militant leader who was being pursued when an ambush left four American soldiers dead in October, the American ambassador said Tuesday.

U.S. Ambassador Eric P. Whitaker told The Associated Press he does not know the identity of the detained suspect but that the head of Niger’s special forces is hopeful it’s a known extremist leader.

At the time of the October

ambush that also left five Nigeriens dead, U.S. forces and their counterparts from the Niger military were pursuing Doundou Chefou, a militant suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of an American aid worker.

Authorities on Tuesday were awaiting identification of whether the man in custody is Chefou.

“Detentions by Nigerien forces are ongoing,” Whitaker said.

A U.S. investigation into the October ambush, which was claimed by fighters linked to the Islamic State group, has not yet been

released.

“Regrettably, they were ambushed by ISIS Greater Sahara forces,” said Whitaker.

U.S. officials familiar with the military investigation into the Niger ambush said last month that it concluded the team didn’t get required senior command approval for their risky mission to capture Chefou.

As a result, commanders couldn’t accurately assess the mission’s risk, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the results of the not-yet-released investigation. The investigation

finds no single point of failure leading to the attack, which occurred after the soldiers learned Chefou had left the area. It also draws no conclusion about whether villagers in Tongo Tongo, where the U.S. team stopped for water and supplies, alerted IS militants to American forces in the area. Still, questions remain about whether higher-level commanders — if given the chance — would have approved the mission, or provided additional resources for it.

Before October, there had not been any major incur-

sion like that into Niger before, said the commander of Special Operations Command Africa, Maj. Gen. Marcus Hicks, who warned that the extremist threat has been marching south in the Sahel at an unprecedented level.

Threats in the region include al-Qaida-linked fighters in Mali and Burkina Faso, Islamic State group-affiliated fighters in Niger, Mali and Nigeria and the Nigeriabased Boko Haram. All take advantage of the vast region’s widespread poverty and poorly equipped security forces.q

A12 WORLD

Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS

Dissident rebels kidnap 2 more along Ecuador-Colombia border QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuadorean authorities said Tuesday that a dissident rebel group has kidnapped two more people in the same conflictive border area where three press workers taken hostage by the group were killed last week. Authorities showed a proof-of-life video in which a man and woman tied at their necks with rope beg President Lenin Moreno to meet their captors’ demands so that they don’t suffer the same fate as the journalists. “Mr. President, please help us, give us a hand, so the same thing doesn’t happen to us as it did the journalists,” the man said in the video flanked by two camouflaged men with assault weapons and their backs facing the camera. “We have kids, and family. ... We have nothing to do with this war.”

Navas appealed to his compatriots to help identify the two captives, who identify themselves as Ecuadoreans in the video.

He said they were held by

the same splinter faction of the demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, that the government says killed the employees of El Comercio newspaper three weeks after taking them hostage.

Ecuadorean security forces backed by their Colombian counterparts have been carrying out an unprecedented manhunt for the group’s leader, Walter Arizala, better known by his alias Guacho, and have offered more than $230,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

The holdout faction of the FARC has been terrorizing residents along the border area, carrying out several attacks on Ecuadorean military targets in retaliation for Moreno’s decision to combat drug gangs that have made the long-neglected area a major transit zone for Colombian-produced cocaine making its way by boat up the Pacific Ocean coastline to Central America and then by land to the

Black ribbon banners representing seven people who were killed by a dissident rebel group on the border of Ecuador with Colombia, hang outside the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Tuesday, April 17, 2018.

Associated Press

U.S. Four soldiers have been killed in the attacks, and dozens more injured.

In a proof-of-life video of the journalists sent by the Oliver Sinisterra Front, the captors demand Ecuador release several of its combatants and end all antinarcotics cooperation with Colombia. It’s not clear if those are the same demands the new captives referred to in the newest video. “These are cowards,” said Navas. “They

protect themselves with human shields to blackmail the Ecuadorean people and steal our peace.”

The FARC funded its insurgency by taxing cocaine moving through large swathes of the jungle it dominated during its halfcentury war on the state.

But as part of a 2016 peace deal some 7,000 rebel fighter turned over their weapons, vowing to abandon the drug trade and help Colombia’s government

retrain peasants to grow alternative, legal crops.

A number of criminal gangs, some of them made up of former FARC rebels whose only marketable skill is firing a gun, have rushed to fill the void and profit from a boom in cocaine production. Among them is Arizala, a former mid-range commander who Colombian authorities say leads a few dozen soldiers.

Even as news of the latest kidnapping sank in, authorities were still struggling to recover the bodies of the three press workers whose murder shocked Ecuadoreans long accustomed to seeing themselves as insulated from drug violence raging across the border.

On Monday, the captors said in a statement that they were halting the handover to the International Committee of the Red Cross because of military actions against them.

“We are not going to allow terror to take root in our homeland,” Moreno said Monday.q

Venezuela arrests 2 Chevron employees amid corruption purge CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Chevron Corp. said Tuesday that two of its Venezuela-based employees were arrested by local authorities, in what appeared to be the first such detentions of a private oil company’s workers amid a growing anti-corruption purge.

It was not clear what led to the arrests. A statement from the San Ramon, California-based company provided no details except to say the employees were

taken into custody Monday. Chevron said it contacted authorities to understand the reasons behind the detention and ensure its employees’ safety and well-being.

In recent months, President Nicolas Maduro has been steadily handing control of the nation’s oil industry to the military as a reward for its loyalty while authorities have arrested dozens of Venezuelan officials or employees at the state oil

giant PDVSA in a bid to root out corruption in the OPEC nation’s oil industry.

As part of the anti-corruption drive, prosecutors in January ordered or carried out the arrest of the general manager and other top managers at Petropiar SA, the PDVSA-Chevron joint venture operating in the so-called Hugo Chavez oil belt sitting atop the world’s largest crude reserves. They were charged with embezzlement and conspiracy

tied to the illegal manipulation of production figures.

The latest arrests are believed to be the first involving a private oil company’s direct employees, a major escalation in the crackdown that could frighten other foreign investors who thought they had learned how to navigate Venezuela’s turbulent policy environment, analysts said.

Chevron is the largest of only a handful of U.S. oil companies that stayed in

Venezuela after Chavez raised royalties and seized assets to boost the state’s control of the oil industry.

As the economy has spun out of control amid hyperinflation, oil has become an even more important financial crutch for President Nicolsa Maduro’s bankrupt socialist government, which has resorted to issuing IOUs to vendors in order to stockpile what little hard currency continues to trickle in from oil exports.q

Local A13

Wednesday 18 April 2018

“I like every deal of it, it is really my passion and gives me such a satisfaction. Of course there are days that bring frustrations, but I see them a as a challenge. We are a very united team and that makes a difference.”

It is evident that the maintenance department hammer the results home as the guest experience is everything.q

Juan E. Irausquin Boulevard 51 Oranjestad, Aruba T + 297 582 7000

‘I want my engineers to be at 5-star level’ Casa del Mar Beach Resort & Timeshare offers you paradise: an oceanfront location on the white sandy Eagle Beach, the amazing blue-green colored Caribbean ocean, wonderful luxury oceanfront or poolside timesharing suites and a world of amenities like spa, restaurant, pool and fitness. To keep this all running as the perfect picture it is, every resort needs a fixer, a maker or a doer. To keep the resort looking top notch. Meet the Head of the Handymen: Ferdinand Alexander Winterdal.

He is the Chief Engineer, Head of the Maintenance Department, and he sure knows his trade. “We take care of the place, everything that has to do with mechanics, palms, sewage systems, air-conditioning, garden, pool and so on. All that has to do with maintenance is under my wings and I have an awesome team of 11 employees to make it happen, day in, day out.” His background is Technical Structure & Engineering and Ferdinand has been working for four years already in Casa del Mar Beach Resort & Timeshare. “Though I know every corner of this resort, I still bump into surprises sometimes and that makes the job dynamic.”

Hammering Results His day starts off with a Toolbox Meeting where he plans the day together with the supervisor and coordinator. “We set priorities, solve calamities, plan follow up’s and go through the weekly schedule for all staff. I like things organized.” He receives the guest’s comments through a work order system and that goes from small things like clogs, sweating rooms, a not properly working stove or fridge to -in some cases- bigger issues like electrical problems in rooms. “My guys have a step-by-step procedure to go by. If it cannot be solved by that, we contact an outside company up to we solve the matter.” In the public areas issues can occur like Jacuzzi heaters that won’t go on, toilet breakers that leak or paint jobs to be done. “We have very concerned members who inform us right away when something is not working as should be. They feel this place like their home and they treat it like that. That means me and my team must maintain that feeling and address to issues immediately. To keep them feel home.”

Ferdinand pushes his team for the best quality. The members are very happy with the level of maintenance and the department works as a well-oiled machine. “I want my engineers to be at a 5-star level. We improved the department drastically together. The implementation of a Prevent Maintenance Plan makes us be ahead of things.” He loves the job and he cannot even specify what part more than others.

Casa del Mar would like to welcome you to their family of owners with suits available for sale or rental year round.

A14 LOCAL

Wednesday 18 April 2018

‘Take your car off the beaten track to meet our monuments and their stories’ ORANJESTAD - The mix of cultures in Aruba is very visible in its architecture as -like in all cultures-, monuments reflect your history and your people. If you take the chance to leave the beach for a little while and take your car off the beaten track you will be surprised what you see.

Anne Witsenburg is director of the Monumentsfund Aruba and points out precisely why a monumental trip should not lack in your vacation’s itinerary.

The fund owns 12 monu-

ments, out of the 36 protected monuments in the island. “But there are over 300 more monuments on the list to be protected and of course we dream to see that become reality as soon as possible.”

The international guidelines that apply for monuments decide whether it will be a protected monument or not. “The building or object needs to be at least 50 years old, a special value in architecture or to history or to the people of Aruba is required and there has to be a certain uniqueness. If

it was changed too much throughout time or there are already any of the same kind it is a no go.”

Useless islands There is a difference between the islands when it comes to monuments, as Witsenburg explains. “That goes back to their history.

Curacao used to be a very wealthy island where many

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-mainly Dutch- merchants lived close together and that is the reason you find this typical colonial Dutch style buildings packed in certain areas nowadays.

They are celebrating 20 years of Unesco heritage this year. Than scattered around the rest of the island you will see the smaller country houses.” Aruba and Bonaire were called

the useless islands in the colonial time, so any Indian willing to live here was given a small piece of land to build his home. “That is the reason you find all these typical small houses scattered around the island.

We actually have the same amount of monuments as Curacao though way smaller.”

Magic local touch Some of the monuments owned by the Monumentfund Aruba are the light house, town hall, water tanks in both Oranjestad and San Nicolas. “We are wealthy in different styled monuments and my suggestion is to discover this world outside of the tourist zone. The book Monumental Guide comes in handy as there are three maps inside that guide you to the monuments and tell you about them. But there are also possibilities to have your personal people guide. And the best is that I can almost guarantee you the magic of the local touch when you bump into an authentic cunucu house (country house) and talk to the owners. They will proudly share their family history with you.”

Continued on Page 15

LOCAL A15

Wednesday 18 April 2018

‘Take your car off the beaten track to meet our monuments and their stories’ came here to the outdoors as in those times there was only cunucu (countryside) here. They had big parties and enjoyed leisure time with family and friends.”

Richer Arubans at that time looked outwards for architecture inspiration as that was considered chic, Witsenburg explains. Either to the US (art deco style like the water tower in San Nicolas), Holland (Dutch colonial style) or Colombia/Venezuela. “This house is inspired by a villa around Cartagena, Colombia. The ideas mostly came from the wives”, she says laughing.

Continued from Page 14

Outside inspiration The Monumentfund acquires or buys monuments and restores them back into their former glory.

Than they rent it out. “That sounds easy, but it is incredibly complex as most monuments have multiple owners due to the fact that inheritances are split and all need to decide upon the selling.” They cooperate with the government office of monuments because they set the rules of what you can and cannot do to a protected monument. “We also have the task to maintain the buildings which is an ongoing process. The wind, the salt in the air and the sun that not only burns human bodies but also buildings are huge challenges. Next to that we do education, create awareness and maintain public relations about our monuments.”

The office of the Monumentfund is actually located in a monument itself.

The building is beautiful and has a tropical style.

“This house goes back to the 1920’s when it was built as a vacation house

by Aruban entrepreneur Croes. He and his family

Sustainable driven Sustainability is a big thing to the Monumentfund Aruba. Witsenburg: “Obviously to restore old buildings and not destroy them to build new ones is already sustainable in itself. Than we have the technical sustainability as in using the right materials and techniques but also

the social sustainability.

That includes looking at the non-tangible part of heritage: the stories to be told, the music to be played, the dinners that were cooked in the places we try to restore. That keeps it alive.

Most of our monuments are meant to be lived in so we would like to reintroduce the joy of living in a monument. We work together with private companies to look into that.” In their office they installed solar panels, use LED lightning and recently implemented an electrical charging point for electric vehicles.

The Monumentfund Aruba is open every day from Monday to Friday from 8 to 5. You are more than welcome to ask for information, guiding and help. For more information check their Facebook page stichting monumenten fonds aruba and the website http://www.monumentenfondsaruba.com.q

A16 LOCAL

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Chat & Sing for Our Grannies and Grandpas ORANJESTAD – The National Library organizes another time their successful project “Conta Cuenta na Casnan di Anciano”. During three months authors, poets and story tellers visit several Senior Citizen Homes with an entertaining program.

This time author Marco Christiaans, actress Emerita Emerencia and actress Faritah Luidens will form the creative motor behind the program. The second part of the project offers an interactive sketch with the theme “Habits from the Past” accompanied by music of Patrick Christiaans and that part will be presented to some employees of the library.

The library wishes to contribute to joy and knowl-

edge of the elderly that live in these homes. The Senior Citizen Homes where the program will be presented are: Paviljoen San Pedro, Huize Maris Stella Savaneta, SABA San Nicolas and Cas Marie Savaneta. Twelve

visits are planned for the coming three months in the homes, each visits brings the author or actress and a representative of the library.

The coordination of this project is led by one of the

librarians and Quota Club Aruba takes care of a part of the financial costs.

Actress Faritah Luidens is a known TV personality with “Tica Bashabou”, but she has more talents like singing

and theatre performances.

Marco Christiaans is a Story Teller and author of the book “Perseverancia”.

Emerita Emerencia is actress, school teacher and theatre teacher.q

local A17

Wednesday 18 April 2018

A weekly calendar with a selection of what’s going on in Aruba Wednesday 18 Unwind with Wine • If you are a wine lover, you may not miss out on this place. On Wednesday they have specials for locals in their wine tasting, house-feel place.

• 7 – 10 PM • The Wine Room, Oranjestad • Facebook The Wine Room Thursday 19 Book Launch Caribbean Novel • Caribbean Crossroads is the journey of a young boy named Chen and how his humble life became one filled with action, conflict, pain, mythical mysteries and finally love.

Author Charles Croes will present his new book to the public.

• 7.30 – 9.30 PM • National Library, Oranjestad • Facebook Biblioteca Nacional Aruba

Sunday 22 Sunset Healing and Meditation Vibes on Earth Day • A sunset healing sound night to honor Mother Earth on her day. A mindfulness walking meditation will take place as we do some earthling and feel the vibrations of her. To end the night, we will use the power of the Ocean and singing bowls to enter a meditative state of pure relaxation.

• 6 – 7.15 PM • Arashi Beach, Noord • Facebook Yogi Vibes Aruba

Friday 20 Ceviche Pop-Up • You can taste 12 different versions of ceviche or related dishes, prepared by 4 well-known chefs that each present a trio of dishes that reflect their country of origin. Dive into this culinary experience and taste the quality of the chefs and the diversity of ceviche.

• 7 – 10 PM (also on Saturday) • Aruba Marriott Resort, Palm Beach • Facebook Aruba Marriott Resort & Stellaris® Casino Monday 23 C-Zar live at MooMba Beach • Singer C-Zar live on stage. C-Zar has a wonderful, unusual, voice which will keep you spellbound. Come and toast to another beautiful night in Aruba • From 9 pm • MooMba Beach • Facebook MooMba Beach

Saturday 21 Da Vinci ON Stage • Da Vinci Academy is Visual & performing Arta Education for children. ON STAGE is their annual student showcase. This familyfriendly event is always an exciting experience, with a unique multidisciplinary program featuring music, theatre, dance, film and more...

• 7.30 – 21.30 PM • Cas di Cultura, Oranjestad • Facebook Da Vinci Academy

Tuesday 24 Yoga & Intro to The Bars Method • FREE EVENT “Yoga & Intro to The Bars Method”. Start is a delicious 60 min yoga class (accessible for all levels), followed by an introduction to The Bars Method / Access Consciousness, founded by Gary Douglas.

• 6 – 8 PM • Happy Buddha Aruba, Palm Beach • Facebook ReBALANCE

A18

Wednesday 18 April 2018

In this Sunday, April 13, 1986, file photo, Jack Nicklaus watches his shot go for a birdie on the 17th at the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Ga. Curtis Strange says every player who finished stayed in the locker room to watch the 46-year-old Nicklaus win his 18th major.

Associated Press

HEATIN’ UP

Majors can have impact on others in different ways

By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer Major champions today create memories for tomorrow.

Some of them, anyway.

Still to be determined is whether the grit Patrick Reed showed at Augusta National — holding off Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler in that order — resonates with a junior who is just getting into golf or motivates one of Reed's peers.

"It's such a nostalgic game," McIlroy said last summer. "People remember when they watched Jack (Nicklaus) win a U.S. Open or Tom Watson chip in at Pebble Beach. Whatever generation it is, that's what they're going to remember and that's their fondest memory."

McIlroy was among five major champions who were asked about their fondest memory of a major (excluding those they won).

Continued on Page 23

Wade turns back the clock and 76ers in Game 2 Miami victory Miami Heat's Dwyane Wade, right, shoots with Philadelphia 76ers' T.J. McConnell, center, and Ersan Ilyasova, left, of Turkey, defend during the first half in Game 2 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, Monday, April 16, 2018, in Philadelphia.

Associated Press Page 20

SPORTS A19

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Matthews, Marleau help Maple Leafs beat Bruins in Game 3 TORONTO (AP) — Auston Matthews got the goahead goal in the second period, Patrick Marleau scored twice, and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins 4-2 on Monday night in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference first-round series.

James van Riemsdyk also scored and Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly added two assists each ti help Toronto pull to 2-1 in the bestof-seven set. Frederik Andersen stopped 40 shots.

Adam McQuaid and Zdeno Chara had the goals for Boston, Sean Kuraly had two assists, and Tuukka Rask finished with 26 saves.

The Maple Leafs will look to even the series at home in Game 4 on Thursday night.

DEVILS 5, LIGHTNING 2 NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Taylor Hall had a goal and two assists, setting up Stefan Noesen’s game-winner with 7:05 play, and New Jersey scored four times in the third to beat Tampa Bay in Game 3.

Rookie Will Butcher had a power-play goal earlier in the third to tie the score 2-all, and Blake Coleman and Ben Lovejoy added empty net goals late. Cory Schneider made 34 saves while starting in place of Keith Kinkaid.

Schneider, who seemed to hurt his groin in a collision with Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh midway through the final period, survived a late power play to nail down the win and pul;l the Devils to 2-1 in the best-of-seven first-round series.

Alex Killorn and Steven Stamkos each had a power-play goal and an assist for the Lightning. Nikita Kucherov added two assists, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves.

Game 4 is Wednesday night at the Prudential Center.

SHARKS 8, DUCKS 1 SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Joonas Donskoi scored one goal and set up another to start a four-goal barrage in the second period and San Jose raced past Anaheim for the third straight game to take a 3-0 series lead.

Donskoi scored and then set up Marcus Sorensen in the opening four minutes of the second period to seize control of the game and series.

Eric Fehr and Tomas Hertl added goals later in the second to turn this all-California series into a rout. Logan Couture had a goal and two assists, Joe Pavelski, Evander Kane and Timo Meier scored powerplay goals in the third period, for the Sharks, who have outscored the Ducks 14-3 through the first three games of the first-round series.

Martin Jones made 45 saves, the most for a Sharks goalie in a regulation playoff game.

San Jose will look to complete the sweep in Game 4 at home Wednesday night.

Rickard Rakell scored a power-play goal for Anaheim, which has scored three goals all series — including just one at even strength.

AVALANCHE 5, PREDATORS 3 DENVER (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon scored twice, including one as part of a three-goal first period and another to chase Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne from the game, and Colorado pulled to 2-1 in the firstround series.

Blake Comeau and Gabriel Bourque also scored in a furious opening period that revved up a pom-pom waving capacity crowd.

Gabriel Landeskog was credited with an empty-net goal for the Avalanche, who snapped a 12-game skid against the Predators.

Game 4 is Wednesday in Denver.

MacKinnon’s goal at 4:25 of the second period gave Colorado a 4-0 lead and prompted the Predators to pull Rinne in favor of backup Juuse Saros. Rinne allowed four goals on 15 shots.

Jonathan Bernier stopped 29 shots on a night when the Avalanche finished 0 for 5 on the power play. Ryan Johansen had a secondperiod goal and Colton Sissons scored another in the third to make it 4-2.q

Toronto Maple Leafs centre Patrick Marleau (12) scores past Boston Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask (40) during third period NHL round one playoff hockey action in Toronto on Monday, April 16, 2018.

Associated Press

A20 SPORTS

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Heat snap 76ers 17-game winning streak, even up series PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Dwyane Wade turned in a vintage performance, scoring 28 points to end the 76ers’ 17-game winning streak and lead the Miami Heat to a 113-103 Game 2 win over Philadelphia on Monday night and even the first-round playoff series.

Playing without injured AllStar center Joel Embiid for the 10th straight game, the Sixers nearly pulled off an epic comeback and rallied from 16 down to just two points late in the fourth.

Philly fans were going wild and suddenly the homecourt edge that had made the Sixers unbeatable for a month seemed like it would perk the team back up for one more notch on the winning streak.

Wade buried two big buckets down the stretch that pushed back the Sixers and tied the series as it shifts to Miami for Game 3 on Thursday.

The Sixers lost for the first time since March 13 to Indiana. They won 16 straight to end the regular season and the first game of the playoffs.

Ben Simmons led the Sixers with 24 points and Dario Saric had 23.

WARRIORS 116, SPURS 101 OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) —

Kevin Durant sparked a decisive third-quarter run on the way to 32 points, Klay Thompson added 31 points and five assists in another superb playoff performance and the Warriors rallied in the second half to beat the Spurs for a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.

As Stephen Curry remains out likely for the entire series nursing a sprained left knee, the defending champions used all the offensive power they had to take both home games in the best-of-seven series. Wearing a dark checkered sport coat, Curry was all smiles watching another lopsided win without him.

LaMarcus Aldridge scored 34 for the Spurs and Rudy Gay moved into the starting lineup and scored 12 points.

Game 3 is Thursday as the series shifts to San Antonio.q Miami Heat’s Dwyane Wade, right, shoots with Philadelphia 76ers’ T.J. McConnell, center, and Ersan Ilyasova, left, of Turkey, defend during the first half in Game 2 of a first-round NBA basketball playoff series, Monday, April 16, 2018, in Philadelphia.

Associated Press

Olympian, Nassar victim McKayla Maroney trying to move on

Olympic gold medal gymnast McKayla Maroney, center, a sexual abuse victim of U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, arrives to make her first public remarks as the featured speaker at the 2018 Spring luncheon of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC), Tuesday April 17, 2018, in New York.

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — McKayla Maroney’s gymnastics career brought her a pair of Olympic medals and widespread fame.

It also brought her into close contact with former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who Maroney says abused her for years and left her wondering if the heights she reached during her career came at too high a price.

“I at times question if my gymnastics career was really even worth it,” Maroney said Tuesday while speaking to the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “Because of the stuff I’m dealing with now.

You have to pick up the pieces of your life and that has been the hardest part for me.

It’s always three steps forward, two steps back.”

Maroney’s remarks were her first public statements since revealing she was among Nassar’s abuse victims last fall.

The 22-year-old said she’s been empowered by the outpouring of support from others since coming forward and is intent on making sure the culture at USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee and Michigan State University changes for the better.

Nassar spent nearly three decades at USA Gymnastics before being fired in 2015 after complaints about his behavior.

He continued to work at MSU through the fall of 2016 before being hit with federal charges.

Nassar is now serving de-

cades in prison for molesting women and girls and for possessing child pornography.

Maroney pointed to personnel overhauls at USA Gymnastics, Michigan State and the USOC as signs of progress, though much work remains to be done.

“Within the gymnastics world, there’s no question we need to rebuild from the ground up so this never happens again,” Maroney said. USA Gymnastics has replaced nearly its entire leadership over the last 15 months, including bringing on a new president and board of directors. Michigan State and the USOC have also shaken up their leadership in response to Nassar’s widespread abuse.q

SPORTS A21

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Didi hits 2 HRs, Stanton hitless vs Marlins, Yanks romp 12-1

By The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Didi Gregorius homered twice for the second time this season, Gary Sanchez had three hits and three RBIs, and the New York Yankees romped to a 12-1 victory over Derek Jeter's Miami Marlins on Monday night.

The only Yankees bopper who didn't join the hit parade was Giancarlo Stanton, who went hitless and got booed again by the hometown fans in his first game against his former team.

Aaron Judge became the fastest major leaguer to hit 60 career homers, and Gregorius finished with three RBIs. New York scored in each of the first five innings and built an 11-0 lead for Luis Severino (3-1), who allowed one hit in six scoreless innings and struck out eight.

Judge hit his fourth home run this season and reached 60 in 197 games, five fewer than Mark McGwire.

Jeter did not attend the

game, the first between the teams since the former Yankees captain became Marlins CEO last October.

Stanton went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts, a basesloaded foulout, a walk and was hit by a pitch. The fourtime All-Star, two-time NL home run champion and reigning NL MVP was dealt to the Yankees in December as part of a Jeter-directed payroll purge.

Caleb Smith (0-2), who pitched in nine games for the Yankees last year, needed 42 pitches to get the first three outs and lasted just 2 1/3 innings.

RAYS 8, RANGERS 4 ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Mallex Smith had four hits and Blake Snell struck out nine to help Tampa Bay stop a four-game losing streak.

Smith bunted for a single against Martin Perez (1-2) in a four-run second inning that gave the Rays a 5-0 lead. He doubled and scored in the third on his way to a second four-hit game in eight days.

Snell (2-1) gave up one run and five hits in 6 1/3 innings.

Joey Gallo became the first left-handed hitter to homer against Snell, who has made 47 career starts.

Nomar Mazara added a three-run shot in the eighth.

Wilson Ramos had three hits for the Rays and drove in two runs. C.J. Cron and Daniel Robertson homered for Tampa Bay. Perez gave up seven earned runs and 10 hits in four innings.

MARINERS 2, ASTROS 1

SEATTLE (AP) — James Paxton delivered six strong innings, Nelson Cruz took Dallas Keuchel deep and Seattle ended a six-game skid against Houston.

Paxton (1-1) allowed a leadoff homer to George Springer in the first inning but was solid after that, striking out seven over six innings.

Nelson Cruz hit his third home run in five games with his tying solo blast off Keuchel (0-3) with two outs in the fourth. Dee Gordon's RBI double made it 2-1 in the sixth, putting Paxton in line for the win.

Nick Vincent and Juan Nicasio got the ball to closer Edwin Diaz, and he pitched a scoreless ninth for his AL-leading seventh save.

ATHLETICS 8, WHITE SOX 1 OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Daniel Mengden carried a shutout into the ninth inning in his best start of the season and Oakland won before another sparse crowd at the Coliseum.

Matt Olson homered, Jed Lowrie drove in three runs and Stephen Piscotty had two hits and an RBI for the A's. Oakland has won consecutive games for the first time this season.

Mengden (2-2) had allowed three earned runs or more in each of his first three starts but was dominant against Chicago.

Reynaldo Lopez (0-2) allowed a leadoff homer to Olson in the fourth and gave up two runs over six innings.q

New York Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton, left, celebrates with Didi Gregorius after Gregorius hit a two-run home run against the Miami Marlins during the fourth inning of a baseball game, Monday, April 16, 2018, in New York.

Associated Press

A22 SPORTS

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Harper hits broken-bat HR, helps Nats rally past Mets 8-6

By The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — Bryce Harper hit a startling, broken-bat homer early, then grounded a key single during a six-run surge in the eighth inning that sent Washington past New York.

The Nationals rallied against five pitchers in their big burst, winning for just the fourth time in 13 games.

The Mets had been off to the best start in franchise history behind the top bullpen in the majors before collapsing.

Trailing 6-1, Washington combined five hits, three walks and a hit batter to take the lead.

Harper's two-run single off Jerry Blevins made it 6-3.

Wilmer Difo tied it with a two-out, two-run single off Jeurys Familia, and Michael A. Taylor drew a basesloaded walk from the Mets closer for the go-ahead run.

Howie Kendrick added a solo homer in the ninth.

Harper's major leagueleading eighth home run was a show of shear power and strength. His bat broke into two pieces, but the ball still flew an estimated 406 feet to right-center field.

Harper connected for a solo drive in the first inning off Jacob deGrom, who struck out 12 in 7 1/3 innings, the longest outing by a Mets pitcher this season.

He left with two on, one out and a five-run lead.

A.J. Cole (1-1) got the win despite giving up Asdrubal Cabrera's two-run homer in the seventh that made it

6-1. Ryan Madson earned his second save.

AJ Ramos (0-1) took the loss.

DODGERS 10, PADRES 3 SAN DIEGO (AP) — Yasmani Grandal hit a grand slam, Matt Kemp had a three-run homer and HyunJin Ryu (2-0) struck out nine in six strong innings.

Grandal, acquired from San Diego in a trade for Kemp in December 2014, hit his third career slam with two outs in the ninth off Kazuhisa Makita.

Kemp drove the first pitch he saw from lefty Robbie Erlin (0-2) to left-center to highlight the third inning, which was a mess for the Padres.

Third baseman Christian Villanueva and right fielder Hunter Renfroe committed errors that allowed Chris Taylor and Corey Seager to reach safely at the start of the inning. Enrique Hernandez hit an RBI single, Cody Bellinger had a base hit and Kemp launched his second home run for a 6-2 lead.

ROCKIES 6, PIRATES 2 PITTSBURGH (AP) — Trevor Story drilled a three-run home run, German Marquez pitched six effective innings and Colorado kept its road surge going.

Story bounced back from a miserable series in Washington by going 2 for 3 and driving in three runs, all of them coming when he sent a pitch from Steven Brault (2-1) into the bleachers in left field with one out in the fourth at frigid and blustery

Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper hits a solo home run in the first inning of a baseball game against the New York Mets, Monday, April 16, 2018, in New York.

Associated Press

PNC Park to break open a close game.

Charlie Blackmon added his team-leading seventh home run of the season for Colorado. The Rockies have won five of six overall and are 8-2 in their last 10 games away from Coors Field.

Marquez (1-1) held the Pirates without a hit until a one-out triple by Francisco Cervelli in the fifth. He left after six innings, giving up two runs, two hits and two walks with six strikeouts.

BRAVES 2, PHILLIES 1 ATLANTA (AP) — Julio Teheran outpitched Aaron Nola for a rare night of success at SunTrust Park and Atlan-

ta snapped Philadelphia's six-game winning streak.

Teheran (1-1) allowed one run, five hits and three walks with nine strikeouts in six innings. He began the night 3-10 with a 6.20 ERA and 21 homers allowed in 19 starts at the Braves' second-year stadium, but Teheran kept the Phillies guessing with a tough slider.

Atlanta became the last team in the majors to record a save as closer Arodys Vizcaino ended it on Carlos Santana's groundout.

Nola (1-1) gave up four hits, two runs and two walks in six innings. The Phillies' 24-yearold ace struck out two.

REDS 10, BREWERS 4 MILWAUKEE (AP) — Billy Hamilton drove in three runs and Cincinnati ended an eight-game losing streak.

The Reds won for just the third time in 16 games this season. Cincinnati is tied with Kansas City for the fewest wins in the majors.

Joey Votto had an RBI double for his first extra-base hit of the season.

Cincinnati starter Luis Castillo (1-2) shut out the Brewers for six innings before allowing four runs in the seventh.

Milwaukee starter Brent Suter (1-2) allowed three runs and six hits over five innings and struck out four.q

Neymar says he'll be well rested when World Cup starts

Brazil's soccer star Neymar walks on crutches during a promotional event from one of his sponsors, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Tuesday, April 17, 2018.

Associated Press

By MAURICIO SAVARESE SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian star Neymar expects to be in better shape at the World Cup in Russia than he was before his foot injury.

The Brazilian forward said on Tuesday that while it has been hard to miss a crucial part of the season because his first major surgery, the bright side is that he will be well rested when soccer's showcase tournament begins on June 14.

"I will have enough time

to get to the World Cup in good shape and prepare myself," Neymar told journalists during an event for one of his sponsors in Sao Paulo. He arrived using crutches and asked to be seated as quickly as possible when he was on stage."I expect to get there better than I was," he said. "There are doubts, of course. I feel that too. But that is normal for someone that got injured. It has been hard not to play and prac-

tice." Neymar also said he will have his last post-surgery medical exam on May 17, and could be available for Brazil's training sessions that start May 21 near Rio de Janeiro.

The Paris Saint-Germain striker had surgery in March on a cracked fifth metatarsal in his right foot.

The Brazilian also said it was hard not to be with his PSG teammates to celebrate their French league title on Sunday.q

SPORTS A23

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Zverev, Dimitrov, Thiem rusty, reach Monte Carlo 3rd round

By JEROME PUGMIRE MONACO (AP) — Alexander Zverev, Grigor Dimitrov and Dominic Thiem all came from a set down to win their second-round matches at the Monte Carlo Masters on Tuesday.

The third-seeded Zverev won 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 against big-serving Gilles Muller, after the fourth-seeded Dimitrov had rallied to beat Pierre-Hugues Herbert 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 and the fifth-seeded Thiem saved a match point in his 5-7, 7-5, 7-5 win against Andrey Rublev of Russia.

Zverev won with the floodlights illuminating center court and the crowd fading along with the light.

Muller saved the first match point with a strong serve but lost to the imposing German on the next with a double fault.

The 20-year-old Zverev had appeared in control of the first set when he broke for a 4-3 lead. But Muller broke straight back, held, and broke again with a neat

drop shot to take the first set. Zverev took control of the second set after Muller dropped his opening serve and then broke him again to clinch it.

Zverev next plays with 13thseeded Fabio Fognini or Jan-Lennard Struff in the third round.

Earlier, Dimitrov his serve twice in the first set against the 82nd-ranked Herbert.

Serving at 5-3 and 15-40 down, he mistimed a forehand and the ball went off the racket frame and into the crowd.

But the Bulgarian found his range in the second set, securing consecutive breaks on the Frenchman's serve before serving it out at love.

Dimitrov broke Herbert in the fifth game of the decider, then immediately dropped serve with another wild forehand before breaking the Frenchman again for 4-3. He sealed the victory on his first match point when he whipped a powerful forehand to the back of the court, which

Herbert returned long.

"I was just a little bit rusty, I haven't played a match for almost three weeks," Dimitrov said. "All I (could) do was just fight and win. How doesn't really matter."

It was even harder for Thiem.

He saved a match point when Rublev served at 5-4, 40-30 but hit a forehand narrowly wide.

Thiem made the most of the reprieve, breaking him with backhand pass down the line and holding for 6-5.

The Austrian was 15-40 up

MAJORS Continued from Page 18

shots at Congressional.

There was one another example of redemption: Sergio Garcia, one of McIlroy's best friends, who went nearly 20 years before winning his first major.

"I cried," McIlroy said. "I cried! I was so happy for him."

BIG MOMENTS Jordan Spieth was 11, already honing his putter on a closely mown section of his front yard, when Tiger Woods won the Masters in 2005 for the fourth time.

Spieth considers that his favorite major championship victory that wasn't his own.

"It goes back to when Tiger holed that chip on 16 and ended up going to a playoff with Chris DiMarco," Spieth said. "That Masters win because of that shot ... when you're a kid, you want to go out right away and try some kind of similar shot that you saw someone hit."

Nothing was remotely similar until he played Augusta National for the first time in the fall of 2013.

"The first thing I was interested in was going behind

16, putting the tee down wherever that pin was and hitting that shot," he said.

Ten years after watching Woods win a fourth green jacket, Spieth won his first.

And perhaps it was only fitting that in the final round, Spieth went long on the 16th and wound up in a similar spot from where Woods chipped in.

"I didn't hit the shot anywhere as good as him," said Spieth, who had to make an 8-footer for par to keep a four-shot lead.

"He was against the collar of the rough, too. That was the coolest shot I ever witnessed and probably ever will witness."

EMOTIONS Davis Love III has watched a lot of friends win majors, all special occasions. One of them meant so much to him that he stayed behind even after missing the cut in the 2011 British Open at Royal St. George's.

"Darren Clarke winning made me the happiest," Love said.

Even on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Love and Clarke were close. Clarke

In this April 10, 2005, file photo, Tiger Woods celebrates with his caddie Steve Williams after his chip-in birdie on the 16th hole during the 2005 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. Jordan Spieth was so inspired by this major and that moment that it was the first shot he wanted to try when he played the Masters for the first time.

REDEMPTION "I'm a big redemption person," McIlroy said. "I'm big on someone winning who deserves it."

The one major that stands out is Adam Scott winning the Masters in 2013, mainly because it came nine months after one of the most stunning collapses on the back nine in a major, even by Australian standards. Scott had a fourshot lead with four holes to play at Royal Lytham & St. Annes when he closed with four straight bogeys, and Ernie Els won his second British Open.

The next year, Scott holed a 20-foot birdie putt on the final hole at Augusta National, and then won with a birdie on the second playoff hole.

"I thought that was awesome," McIlroy said.

Perhaps he spoke from experience. McIlroy had a four-shot lead going into the final round of the 2011 Masters when he shot 80.

He won the very next major, the U.S. Open, by eight

was 42, five years removed from losing his wife to breast cancer. He was no longer among the top 100 in the world and not even eligible for all the majors. And then, finally, he won the claret jug . Love recalls waiting to see Justin Leonard win at Royal Troon in 1997.

This was different.

"I don't think when I watched Justin get the trophy I had tears in my eyes," Love said.

on Rublev’s serve and also converted his first match point, when Rublev double-faulted with a weak serve into the net.

“I was 10 centimeters from being out of the tournament,” a relieved Thiem said. “But I’m happy that I played two hours and 40 (minutes).”

Thiem has reached the French Open semifinals for the past two years. He next meets 12-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic or Borna Coric of Croatia, who play their secondround match on Wednesday.

“I’m looking forward to watching Djokovic and Coric in front of the TV, and then playing the winner on Thursday,” Thiem said.

No. 6 David Goffin of Belgium needed four match points to beat qualifier Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (4), 7-5, while Zverev’s older brother, Mischa Zverev also reached the third round by beating No. 7 Lucas Pouille 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (3).q

AUSSIE PRIDE Scott used to get up early Monday morning to watch the Masters. His favorite major, however, was the British Open in 1993 at Royal St. George's, mainly because of the winner.

Greg Norman never won the Masters. He won the claret jug twice, the second time when Scott was a few weeks from turning 13.

"It was such a big moment for me," he said. q

A24

Wednesday 18 April 2018

HEALTH Liver Fire

By: Dr Carlos Viana As we approach the clinic, a gentleman is quietly waiting for his first Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) consultation. Several other people seem restless and anxious, talking loudly, almost shouting although they have only been sitting for a short time. After a long unusual season of rain, most of us are grateful to sit in the sunshine and invite the trade winds back.

However, although it is not yet the time of “high winds” as spring nears, we have bursts of the heavy breezes, which are the trade mark of our Island. The tropical sun can be unbearable with no wind, but for some, heavy wind becomes just as unbearable. In the Peoples Republic of China, we called the destructive effects of high wind, “wind evil.”

Most people can withstand the negative consequences of gale force wind, but some, who have been consuming greasy or otherwise unhealthy foods, drinking too much alcohol or working too much the wind may bring a “sickness.”

Anger, frustration, resentment and hatred over a long period of time can also make one susceptible to the negative effects of wind. Today’s group brings a mix of symptoms and complaints which has not been relieved by other methods. We will begin now, with anemia, menstrual problems, pale, fungus or easily broken fingernails, then liver problems, headaches, high blood pressure, eye and ear troubles, dif-

ficulty sleeping or waking up between 1 and 3 am. We find a whole host of stomach problems, swollen or painful chest or breast, heart palpitations, not being able to swallow in spite of no throat infection. Some “wind” affected people can be spotted from afar. They have a green hue around their mouths. Some as they walk into clinic leave a trail of strong perfume being used to cover up a sour body smell. Some people can barely walk in before they exclaim that they are “going crazy.”

The wind will get stronger as spring approaches.

With more wind, more people with “affected livers” will arrive. Many will hear me say “Your liver is hot!” “What? Is something wrong with my liver? I just checked and my house/family doctor said that everything was normal on my blood tests” A “hot” or “Liver Fire” will not show up on any medical test, except as possible liver hepatitis.

If a medical symptom cannot be measured on a lab test, does it really exist? To some doctors, if all the medical tests come back “negative,” then the problem is “in your head.” Oriental Medical Doctors (OMD), look at human organs from a different perspective than standard or Western medicine. Western medicine studies only physical aspects of the organs. OMD’s are trained to look at the amount of energy an organ uses in relation to the other organs. We use the heart beat of both radial pulses to determine the amount of energy being or not being used by each organ. We “read” or feel the pulse on both hands to evaluate 29 organ functions. Each pulse position tells us about a different organ and their relationships to each other.

For example, if there is no pulse in the Kidney position, we know that the adrenal gland, which sits on top of the kidneys, is working overtime. This can interrupt proper sleep. Without sufficient Kidney Yin, there is no “Yin” energy to send to the Liver. If the liver has no Yin energy, hyperthyroidism or over-active thyroid, hypertension or high blood pressure, and/or eye problems develop because of “Liver Fire.”

If these deficiencies persist, the “Liver Fire” rises and begins to affect the stomach and heart.

Deficient Heart Yin turns sleep problems into full blown insomnia, sometimes with heart palpitations’ and hearing problems.

Unchecked, this becomes “Heart Fire Blazing Upwards” which can be felt in the throat as “something there,” mucus or a “lump.” Some

people have their adenoids or tonsils and even thyroid removed with the feeling continuing.

When the “Fire Blazing Upwards” reaches the head, symptoms include; ringing in the ears, dry, watery or twitching eyes, headaches and migraines.

Adrenaline that is being over-produced stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. This makes the heart beat faster, closes ore dilates the blood vessels and relaxes the bronchial tubes. Blood Pressure can rise and emotional problems begin many times leading to prescription tranquilizing medication.

Get The Point! People coming to clinic complaining of unexplained anger, stomach problems, heart problems, a feeling that “something is stuck in m throat”, headaches at the temples, dizziness, the list goes on; yet, they are all suffering from liver fire. Natural herbs and acupuncture quickly start feeling better. We are entering the time of year when liver have a tendency to “blaze” upwards producing all these possible symptoms. Want to feel better? Come in so we can check the function of your liver and make sure you are as healthy as you can be.q

CARLOS VIANA, Ph. D. is an Oriental Medical Doctor (O.M.D.) having studied in China; a US Board Cert. Clinical Nutritionist (C.C.N.), an Addiction Professional (C.Ad.), Chairperson of the Latin American Committee of the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology (IAOMT), a Rejuvenating Cell Therapist specializing in Age Management, has a weekly radio program, writes and lectures extensively.

For information: VIANA HEALING CENTER, Kibaima 7, St Cruz TEL: 585-1270 Web Site: www.vianaheal.com “Prescriptions from Paradise” - International Book Award Winner, Alternative Health - ta optenible na Aruba na Viana Healing Center, Tur libreria, Gift shops y centro nan di salud di calidad. tambe ta disponibel den forma do print y pa Kindle download pa nos amigo nan pa fo di Aruba na www.amazon.com Pa anuncio nan acerca di mas evento nan y firmamento di buki check , check corant nan local, radio y television tambe como riba www.vianaheal.com y join e discusion riba nos Facebook pagina: www.facebook.com/prescriptionsformparadise

BUSINESS A25

Wednesday 18 April 2018

U.S. stocks add to gains as company earnings reports impress

By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Technology companies led U.S. stocks solidly higher Tuesday, giving the market its second straight gain.

Consumer-services companies, retailers and health care stocks accounted for a big slice of the broad rally. Banks declined, and oil prices recovered from an early slide.

Strong company earnings and outlooks, as well as some encouraging economic data, helped put investors in a buying mood.

The S&P 500 index rose 28.55 points, or 1.1 percent, to 2,706.39. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 213.59 points, or 0.9 percent, to 24,786.63. The latest gain nudged the blue chip average into positive territory for the year.

The Nasdaq composite climbed 124.81 points, or 1.7 percent, to 7,281.10.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 16.77 points, or 1.1 percent, to 1,579.80.

While the market has been preoccupied lately with concern over geopolitical and trade tensions, Wall Street has something else to focus on over the next few weeks: company earnings.

Financial analysts are forecasting the strongest growth in seven years for S&P 500 companies, partly because of a resurgent global economy, but also because of expectations that last year’s corporate tax cut will have on corporate balance sheets.

Investors also got some encouraging economic data Tuesday.

The International Monetary Fund upgraded its economic outlook for the United States in 2018, forecasting that the U.S. economy will grow 2.9 percent this year, up from the 2.7 percent it had forecast in January and from the 2.3 percent growth the economy achieved last year. And the Federal Reserve said that U.S. factory output rose slightly last month.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said that housing starts rose in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.32 million. That helped send homebuilder stocks higher.

Hovnanian Enterprises led the pack, climbing 4.7 percent to $2.02.

Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 2.82 percent from 2.83 percent late Monday.

The decline in bond yields, which influence interest rates on mortgages and other loans, weighed on some bank shares. Comerica fell 3.5 percent to $92.74 and SunTrust Banks fell 2.2 percent to $65.95.

The dollar fell to 107.02 yen from 107.10 yen late Monday. The euro fell to $1.2367 from $1.2381.

Gold fell $1.20 to $1,349.50 an ounce. Silver added 11 cents to $16.79 an ounce.

Copper slipped 2 cents to $3.08 a pound.

Benchmark U.S. crude rose 30 cents to settle at $66.52 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

IRS payment site fails on tax day, extensions to be granted

By SARAH SKIDMORE SELL AP Personal Finance Writer Americans who waited until the last day to pay their taxes online got an unwelcome surprise: The IRS website to make payments and access other key services is down. The IRS still expects Americans to pay their taxes but U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says extensions will be granted to those impacted when the site is up again.

The IRS said in a statement that “certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties.” It also said that at this point, the problem appears to be a hardware issue.The agency advised taxpayers to “continue filing their tax returns as they normally would.”

The problem is, electronic filing is the most popular way to file. And the IRS of-

sure they can use it and it in no way impacts people paying their taxes,” he told reporters in New Hampshire. q

In this photo March 22, 2013 file photo, the exterior of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building in Washington.

Associated Press

fered no immediate solution but said the returns will be processed when feasible. However, Mnuchin who oversees the IRS, said that they expect the direct pay system to go up shortly.

“We’ll make sure taxpayers have extensions once the system comes up to make

FILE- In this April 5, 2018, file photo, the facade of the New York Stock Exchange is shown.

Associated Press

Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 16 cents to close at $71.58 per barrel. In other energy futures trading, heating oil dropped 1 cent to $2.06 a gallon. Wholesale gasoline was little changed at $2.04 a gallon. Natural gas fell 1 cent to $2.74 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Major indexes in Europe also rose. Germany’s DAX climbed 1.6 percent, while

France’s CAC 40 rose 0.8 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 0.4 percent.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 edged 0.1 percent higher, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was unchanged. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.2 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.9 percent after new data showed China’s economic growth held steady in the first quarter.q

A26 COMICS

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Mutts

Conceptis Sudoku

6 Chix

Blondie

Mother Goose & Grimm

Baby Blues

Zits

Yesterday’s puzzle answer

Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

CLASSIFIED A27

Wednesday 18 April 2018

dOCTOR ON DUTY Oranjestad

Dr. Cayama Tel. 583 2772

San Nicolas

The statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, is removed by crane, Tuesday, April 17, 2018, in New York’s Central Park. Sims was known as the father of modern gynecology, but critics say his use of enslaved African-American women as experimental subjects was unethical.

Associated Press

Editor

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NYC removes statue of doctor who experimented on slaves NEW YORK (AP) — A bronze statue of a 19th century doctor who did experimental surgery without anesthesia on enslaved AfricanAmerican women was removed from Central Park on Tuesday.

New York City’s Public Design Commission voted Monday to accept a mayoral panel’s recommendation to remove the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims for relocation to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, where Sims is buried, accompanied by signage with historical context.

Dr. Bernadith Russell, a gynecologist, emotionally embraced a friend as they watched the statue being removed.

Russell said that when she was in medical school, Sims “was held up as the father of gynecology with no acknowledgement of the enslaved women he experimented on.”

The commission’s president, Signe Nielsen, wept on Monday when she called for the vote, The New York Times reported.

The names of many black women on whom Sims operated are unknown.

Three of the names he recorded were Anarcha, Betsy and Lucy.

“I’m not a woman of color, but I am deeply moved by what we heard today,” said Nielsen. The issue of possibly removing Confederate monuments initially prompted the white nationalists to gather.

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A28 SCIENCE

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Global warming is mixing up nature’s dinner time, study says

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is screwing up nature’s intricately timed dinner hour, often making hungry critters and those on the menu show up at much different times, a new study shows.

Timing is everything in nature. Bees have to be around and flowers have to bloom at the same time for pollination to work, and hawks need to migrate at the same time as their prey. In many cases, global warming is interfering with that timing, scientists said.

A first-of-its-kind global mega analysis on the biological timing of 88 species that rely on another life form shows that on average species are moving out of sync by about six days a decade, although some pairs are actually moving closer together.

In this April 23, 2015, file photo a sparrow hawk looks up after catching a pigeon on a falcon farm, near the northern Serbian town of Coka.

Associated Press

While other studies have looked at individual pairs of species and how warming temperatures have changed their migration, breeding and other timing, the study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences gives the first global look at a worsening timing prob-

lem.

These changes in species timing are considerably greater than they were before the 1980s, the study said.

“There isn’t really any clear indication that it is going to slow down or stop in the near future,” said study lead author Heather Kha-

rouba, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa.

For example in the Netherlands, the Eurasian sparrow hawk has been late for dinner because its prey, the blue tit, has — over 16 years — arrived almost six days earlier than the hawk.

It’s most noticeable and crucial in Washington state’s Lake Washington, where over the past 25 years, plant plankton are now blooming 34 days earlier than the zooplankton that eat them. That’s crucial because that’s messing with the bottom of the food chain, Kharouba said.

In Greenland, the plants are showing up almost three days earlier than the caribou, so more of the baby caribou are dying “because there wasn’t enough food,” Kharouba said.

With warmer temperatures, most species moved their

habits earlier, but interdependent species didn’t always move at the same rate. It’s the relative speed of changes in timing that’s key, Kharouba said.

Because of the small number of species involved in small areas over different studies, Kharouba’s team could not find a statistically significant link between temperature and changes in how species sync together. But what she saw, she said, “is consistent with climate change.”

Scientists not involved in the study praised the work.

“It demonstrates that many species interactions from around the world are in a state of rapid flux,” Boston University biology professor Richard Primack said in an email. “Prior to this study, studies of changing species interactions focused on one place or one group of species.”q

Study: Diamond from the sky may have come from ‘lost planet’

Photo provided by Hillary Sanctuary of EPFL shows a thin slice of the meteorite sample from a meteorite that fell to Earth more than a decade ago providing compelling evidence of a lost planet that once roamed our solar system, according to a study published Tuesday.

Associated Press

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Fragments of a meteorite that fell to Earth more than a decade ago provide compelling evidence of a lost planet that once roamed our solar system, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers from Switzerland, France and Germany examined diamonds found inside the Almahata Sitta meteorite and concluded they were most likely formed by a proto-planet at least 4.55 billion years ago. The diamonds in the meteorite, which crashed in Sudan’s Nubian Desert in October 2008, have tiny crystals inside them that

would have required great pressure to form, said one of the study’s co-authors, Philippe Gillet.

“We demonstrate that these large diamonds cannot be the result of a shock but rather of growth that has taken place within a planet,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Switzerland.

Gillet, a planetary scientist at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, said researchers calculated a pressure of 200,000 bar (2.9 million psi) would be needed to form such diamonds, suggesting the mystery planet was as least as big as Mercury, possibly even Mars. Scientists

have long theorized that the early solar system once contained many more planets — some of which were likely little more than a mass of molten magma.

One of these embryo planets — dubbed Theia — is believed to have slammed into a young Earth, ejecting a large amount of debris that later formed the moon. “What we’re claiming here,” said Gillet, “is that we have in our hands a remnant of this first generation of planets that are missing today because they were destroyed or incorporated in a bigger planet.”

Addi Bischoff, a meteorite expert at the University of Muenster, Germany, said the methods used for the study were sound and the conclusion was plausible.

But further evidence of sustained high pressure would be expected to be found in the minerals surrounding the diamonds, he said.

Bischoff wasn’t involved in the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.q

PEOPLE & ARTS A29

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Fox News: Sean Hannity has our full support

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel said Tuesday that it was as surprised as anyone to learn that Sean Hannity shared a lawyer with President Donald Trump but that its popular prime-time host “continues to have our full support.”

Hannity is a hot topic for journalism ethics experts and comedians alike after his relationship with attorney Michael Cohen was reluctantly revealed in a court hearing Monday on material seized from Cohen as part of the probe on Trump’s Russian contacts.

Fox said Tuesday that it had reviewed Hannity’s “informal relationship” with Cohen and talked with Hannity about it.

Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice, and said that it “never rose to any level that I needed to tell anyone that I was asking him questions.”

The prime-time host is both Trump’s biggest defender in the media and Fox’s most popular personality.

Usually, either Hannity or MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has the biggest audience in cable news.

For a traditional journalist, having a professional relationship with a figure he or she frequently reports on is

In this April 12, 2018 file photo, Fox News personality Sean Hannity attends The Hollywood Reporter’s annual 35 Most Powerful People in Media event in New York.

Associated Press

considered unethical, even more so when that relationship is not disclosed to viewers or readers. For that figure not to inform bosses about it is often considered a firing offense.

Fox frequently makes a distinction between news programming during its daytime hours and opinion shows at night.

“I don’t think it’s enough to say that Sean Hannity was not a journalist,” said Indira Lakshmanan, a journalism ethics expert for the Poynter Institute.

“He describes himself as a journalist when it suits him, and a commentator at other times. If you’re an opinion journalist, you’re still

a journalist.”

The issue plays to his credibility, said Aly Colon, an ethics expert at Washington & Lee University. Hannity frequently draws connections on his show between different people to suggest something nefarious is afoot — like a “deep state” plot against President Trump — so it’s particularly damaging when he is revealed to have secret connections of his own to figures he supports, he said.

The whole situation put Fox in a bind, said television news consultant Andrew Tyndall.

Firing Hannity would make Fox “seem craven to its ideological base of viewers in

capitulating to professional norms and politically correct procedures,” he said.

“The second option, namely to not punish Hannity, would strip away the last vestiges of its claims to be a news channel operating in the journalistic mainstream, leaving it with no defense whatsoever against charges that it is running a propaganda operation.”

History indicates that Fox takes action against its stars when its bottom line is threatened, Lakshmanan said.

For example, settlements were reached on sexual misconduct accusations against Bill O’Reilly without it affecting his job. But after they became publicly known and an advertiser boycott against him quickly caught momentum, O’Reilly was fired.

Attempts by critics to foment an advertiser boycott against Hannity in the past have failed, and there’s yet to be any indication that this latest news is starting a new one.

“I’m not sure it matters to his fans, but it should matter to a network that claims to be a legitimate news network,” Lakshmanan said.

Before it became clear that Hannity had not revealed his connection to Cohen to his superiors, two people on Fox News — “The Five” co-host Juan Wil-

liams and Hannity interview guest Alan Dershowitz — both suggested on the air he faced questions for not doing it.

But on the “Fox & Friends” morning show on Tuesday, the hosts compared the relationship to a friendship where you would informally ask someone for advice.

“Apparently Sean regarded their relationship as something like that,” said Steve Doocy, one of the show’s co-hosts.

In addition to dismissing the revelation as nothing serious, Hannity on his show Tuesday blamed the “absolutely insane” media for attacking him.

Rival news personalities were quick to go after Hannity (“This is crazy town in the news business,” said MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Tuesday), and so did comedians. Ironically, one of the more subdued was ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel talking about “my pal”; he engaged in a bitter dispute with Hannity just a week ago over a Kimmel joke about Melania Trump.

“Jon Stewart, after the show, I’m going to come over and we’re just going to spoon,” Stephen Colbert said.

The funniest line may have come from CNN’s Jake Tapper in a tweet. “Go home 2018,” he wrote.

“You’re drunk.”q

Review: ‘Our Little Secret’ is remarkable debut by Roz Nay

By BRUCE DESILVA Associated Press Ten years ago, in the little town of Cove, Vermont, a quiet girl named Angela Petitjean fell in love with the dashing captain of the high school swim team.

Now, Angela stews in the local police station, stonewalling a series of grim detectives who want to know if she can explain why her first love’s wife, Saskia, has gone missing.

Their questions suggest they have a list of preconceptions they are trying to check off. This, Angela is certain, is no way to get at the truth.

Finally, when Detective Novak takes a turn, Angela asks: “Do you really want to know what happened?”

He does, so over the next 255 pages, she tells him — everything.

“Our Little Secret,” a debut novel by Roz Nay, superficially resembles Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on a Train” and similar psychological thrillers that have stormed the best-seller lists in the last decade. But Nay’s work transcends the subgenre. The plot is more textured and heartbreaking, and her prose contains startling turns of phrase that reveal the soul of a poet.

As Angela speaks, it becomes apparent that she is odd. Perhaps haunted. The reader can’t help but wonder how much of her tale is true.

She begins when her family moves to town, settling in a house “that was sad and gray and looked hunched, like it was coughing.” Her parents, whose ambitions had gone unrealized, were living vicariously through her. Her father’s good intentions, she says, “held all of his own life’s ruin.”

Shutting them out, she finds friendship, and then her “soul mate,” in the swim team captain. They talk of

“Our Little Secret: a Novel” (St. Martin’s Press), by Roz Nay Associated Press

marriage, but after graduation, she spends a year studying at Oxford. When she returns, Saskia has taken her place.

Angela has never been able to let it go.

As she prattles on, Novak grows impatient, interrupting with questions. Is Saskia alive? Did Angela harm her? In the end, she provides the answers — but only in the final sentence of this remarkable novel. ___ Bruce DeSilva, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, is the author of the Mulligan crime novels including “The Dread Line.”q

A30 PEOPLE

Wednesday 18 April 2018

& ARTS

Review: Road trips and redemption in Netflix’s ‘Kodachrome’

By LINDSEY BAHR AP Film Writer The characters in the new film “Kodachrome ,” a good-natured if by-thenumbers road trip and relationship drama with Jason Sudeikis, Elizabeth Olsen and Ed Harris, are enchanted by the analog. Music is to be listened to on vinyl.

Maps are to be read, and not by Siri, to get to a destination. Photographs are best on film. And face time is better than FaceTime when it comes to making amends for decades of bad behavior.

It’s a little funny, then, that Netflix is ultimately the reason that audiences will be able to see “Kodachrome.”

The company acquired the indie at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall and is releasing it to streaming customers on Friday. While it’ll certainly mean the biggest possible audience for “Kodachrome,” there’s also some irony in a movie about the death of a type of film being released on a service that more than a few are worried will be the death of another kind of film.

This image released by Netflix shows Ed Harris, from left, Elizabeth Olsen and Jason Sudeikis in a scene from “Kodachrome.”

Associated Press

Harris, who plays a famous photojournalist rushing against the clock to get some forgotten rolls developed, even has a heart-

felt monologue about how “nothing beats the real thing” and how digital photographs are basically just “electronic dust.” His character doesn’t get into the topic of digital movies and streaming services, but, it’s so on the nose, it can’t help but trigger the thought.

Not that the look of the movie is even all that classical or “analog” anyway.

The images are smooth and pretty, but sanitized and, well, digital. But the intentions are sweet.

It’s based on a 2010 New York Times article by A.G. Sulzberger about the closing of the last processor of Kodachrome, Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, that inspired amateur and professional photographers to make a journey to the shop to develop their last rolls. The film, directed by Mark Raso (“Copenhagen”) and written by Jonathan Tropper (“This is Where I Leave You”) adds some stakes and drama to this, and even riffs on the fact that Kodachrome was also the title of a Paul Simon song by making the lead, Matt (Sudeikis), a music producer.

Matt is having a lousy day

when we meet him, losing a big client and getting an ultimatum from his boss that he’s got to evolve and sign someone. It only gets worse when a woman he’s never met before, Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen), shows up to tell him that his father, Ben (Harris), is dying and would like to see him.

Matt and Ben haven’t spoken for a decade, and their relationship was already strained and sour before then with the death of Matt’s mother and Ben’s general absence. But now, with death knocking, Ben would like Matt to accompany him (and Zoe, who is his caretaker, but we’ll get to that later), on a road trip from New York to Kansas to get Ben’s film developed before the shop closes and he dies.

Despite a lot of protesting, they make a deal with Matt and he takes off in a red convertible with Ben and Zoe. If you’ve ever seen a movie before, you can probably guess where this is going: Ups and downs and fights and reconciliation and a burgeoning romance all bubble up on their drive to the Midwest.

This is a road that has been

traveled before, many, many times.

And while this makes much of the journey predictable, not to mention the fact that the presence of Zoe, who doesn’t do all that much caretaking, is an offensively contrived and obvious plot device, the talented actors elevate the thin premise and make it worth watching — especially the end.

Sudeikis, in particular, shines in this unusually dramatic role and exhibits a depth he touched on in films like “Sleeping with Other People” and “Colossal” but that he really gets to live in here.

“Kodachrome” was never going rock the industry or disrupt where things are going, but maybe the fact that Netflix is making it available to more eyes than would have ever seen it five years ago is its own kind of silver lining for small character dramas that always seem to be on verge of going to way of Kodachrome.

“Kodachrome,” a Netflix release, is Not Rated by the Motion Picture Association of America. Running time: 105 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.q

people & arts A31

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer win hailed as ‘big for music’

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The decision to award rapper Kendrick Lamar the Pulitzer Prize for music represents a historic moment not just for hip-hop and American music but also for the usually stuffy Pulitzer process itself, says one of the music jurors who picked the album “DAMN.” as a finalist.

“It’s big for hip-hop. I think it’s big for our country. It’s big for music. But it’s big for the Pulitzers, too. Institutions are not stuck in time, either.

Institutions can change,” said Farah Jasmine Griffin, a Columbia professor.

Lamar’s win on Monday made history as the first non-classical or non-jazz artist to win the prestigious prize since the Pulitzers included music in 1943. Just having a rapper nominated for the prize is considered a stunning development for awards that usually honor musicians of European classical background.

“I knew that there would be some anger and some resentment and some people who wouldn’t like the idea, but surprisingly enough, I haven’t heard a lot of that,” Griffin said.

The decision was hailed as a turning point in music

This cover image released by Interscope Records shows “Damn.” by Kendrick Lamar.

Associated Press

history by Jetro Da Silva, a professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music who teaches a class on hip-hop writing and production.

“We are at a time in history here perhaps there is a new way to analyze what is considered a contribution to music. Critical thinkers are asking what it really means to be a composer and what is a composition,” he said. “The sky’s the limit.”

In addition to Griffin, the music jury this year includ-

ed music critic David Hajdu, violinist Regina Carter, Paul Cremo from the Metropolitan Opera and the composer David Lang.

The five-member music jury listened to about 180 pieces of music and after deliberating for a few days then submitted to the final board three works — Lamar’s album along with Michael Gilbertson’s “Quartet” and Ted Hearne’s “Sound from the Bench.” Adding “DAMN.” was a unanimous decision by all five.

“Everyone expects that there would have been some form of resistance.

There was none,” said Griffin. “It was just welcomed by everyone as an opportunity to have a serious conversation about the art, about Mr. Lamar’s work, but also about what constitutes what kind of music that should be eligible for this.” The final decision was made by the Pulitzer board, which hailed Lamar’s CD as “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.”

The Pulitzers have been accused of past mistakes when it comes to AfricanAmerican contributions to music. In 1965, jurors recommended awarding a special citation to Duke Ellington, but were rejected.

And it was not until 1997 that the Pulitzer for music even went to a jazz work.

“All of us sitting at that table were fully aware of Duke Ellington in 1965 being passed over for the Pulitzer and a jazz artist not winning for some time,” said Griffin.

“We all brought a history to the table and thought, ‘Why not?’ and ‘Why not

now?’”

The Pulitzers have lately expanded their inclusion of popular music, including honoring Bob Dylan’s lyrics with the prize for literature and giving Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-inspired score for “Hamilton” the Pulitzer for drama.

The Lamar news stunned many and was cheered by the rappers’ fans, including celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Anthony Bourdain, who wrote: “The album was brilliant and deserves every accolade.”

Leon W. Russell, chairman of the NAACP, wrote on Twitter that the win conferred a literary legitimacy but that Lamar had already gotten “street credibility and artistic authority.”

Rapper Charlamagne Tha God noted that Lamar joined African-American luminaries such as playwright August Wilson, writers Alex Haley and Toni Morrison, and musician John Coltrane as Pulitzer winners.

“Congrats to that brother!

I’m inspired!” he wrote.

Griffin, a professor of English and African-American studies who has written about Billie Holiday, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, was a rookie on the Pulitzer jury this year.q

Review: Sting and Shaggy collaborate on sunny reggae album

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer The fact that Shaggy and Sting are teaming up on a CD does, admittedly, sound like a gimmick. Why are these two very different artists together? Because they happen to be known by a single name?

Why not keep going and add Shakira, Sia, Slash and Seal? Maybe one day, but put the snarkiness aside and enjoy this warm bromance between the Jamaican dancehall king and the cool, intellectual Englishman.

“44/876” — the title is a combo of the phone country codes for Sting’s native England and Shaggy’s Jamaica — makes sense as soon as you recall

Sting’s liberal use of reggae rhythms as part of The Police. It turns out there’s real chemistry between Shaggy, whose deep, thick cadences made “Boombastic” and “It Wasn’t Me” such beloved hits, and Sting’s flexible, honeyed voice.

The first, title song smartly honors Bob Marley — Sting says Marley’s ghost “haunts me to this day/ There’s a spiritual truth in the words of his song” — as a way of inoculating everyone for this quirky offering. Then it’s off to more trop-hop on this sunny Caribbean jaunt. There’s the pro-immigrant, Motowninflected “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” where Shaggy, a former U.S. Marine, notes

he defended the nation.

That adds weight to his statement: “I await the day when we will all inhabit a better America.”

Sting, for his part, seems fed up with Britain: “The politics of this country are getting to me,” he sings in one song. Then in the slinky standout “Waiting for the Break of Day,” he hits again: “You see some politicians/ You hear the things they say/ You hear the falseness in their positions.” Branford Marsalis stops by to play sax and Robbie Shakespeare helps on bass. Sting’s daughter, Eliot Sumner, gets a writing credit and sings on “Night Shift.” Others featured on the CD are Eliot Sumner and Morgan Heritage.q

This cover image released by A&M/Interscope Records shows “44/876,” a release by Sting and Shaggy.

Associated Press

A32 FEATURE

Wednesday 18 April 2018

Former first lady Barbara Bush dies at age 92

By MICHAEL GRACZYK HOUSTON (AP) — Barbara Bush, the snowy-haired first lady whose plainspoken manner and utter lack of pretense made her more popular at times than her husband, President George H.W. Bush, died Tuesday, a family spokesman said. She was 92.

Mrs. Bush brought a grandmotherly style to buttoneddown Washington, often appearing in her trademark fake pearl chokers and displaying no vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.

"What you see with me is what you get. I'm not running for president — George Bush is," she said at the 1988 Republican National Convention, where her husband, then vice president, was nominated to succeed Ronald Reagan.

The Bushes, who were married Jan. 6, 1945, had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in American history. And Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies who had a child who was elected president.

The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.

"I had the best job in America," she wrote in a 1994 memoir describing her time in the White House. "Every single day was interesting, rewarding, and sometimes just plain fun."

On Sunday, family spokesman Jim McGrath said the former first lady had decided to decline further medical treatment for health problems and focus instead on "comfort care" at home in Houston. She had been in the hospital recently for congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In 2009, she had heart valve replacement surgery and had a long history of treatment for Graves' disease, a thyroid condition.

"My dear mother has passed on at age 92. Laura, Barbara, Jenna, and I are sad, but our souls are settled because we know hers was," George W. Bush said in a statement Tues-

In this 1990 file photo, first lady Barbara Bush poses with her dog Millie in Washington.

Associated Press

day. "Barbara Bush was a fabulous First Lady and a woman unlike any other who brought levity, love, and literacy to millions. To us, she was so much more.

Mom kept us on our toes and kept us laughing until the end. I'm a lucky man that Barbara Bush was my mother. Our family will miss her dearly, and we thank you all for your prayers and good wishes."

Funeral arrangements weren't immediately released.

The publisher's daughter

and oilman's wife could be caustic in private, but her public image was that of a self-sacrificing, supportive spouse who referred to her husband as her "hero."

In the White House, "you need a friend, someone who loves you, who's going to say, 'You are great,'" Mrs. Bush said in a 1992 television interview.

Her uncoiffed, matronly appearance often provoked jokes that she looked more like the boyish president's mother than his wife. Latenight comedians quipped

that her bright white hair and pale features also imparted a resemblance to George Washington.

Eight years after leaving the nation's capital, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as president. They returned four years later when he won a second term. Unlike Mrs. Bush, Abigail Adams did not live to see her son's inauguration.

She died in 1818, six years before John Quincy Adams was elected.

Mrs. Bush insisted she did

In this March 8, 2017, file photo, the Mensch International Foundation presented its annual Mensch Award to former U.S. President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush at an awards ceremony hosted by Congregation Beth Israel in Houston.

Associated Press

not try to influence her husband's politics.

"I don't fool around with his office," she said, "and he doesn't fool around with my household."

In 1984, her quick wit got her into trouble when she was quoted as referring to Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, as "that $4 million — I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich."

"It was dumb of me. I shouldn't have said it," Mrs. Bush acknowledged in 1988. "It was not attractive, and I've been very shamed. I apologized to Mrs. Ferraro, and I would apologize again."

Daughter-in-law Laura Bush, wife of the 43rd president, said Mrs. Bush was "ferociously tart-tongued."

"She's never shied away from saying what she thinks. ... She's managed to insult nearly all of my friends with one or another perfectly timed acerbic comment," Laura Bush wrote in her 2010 book, "Spoken from the Heart."

In her 1994 autobiography, "Barbara Bush: A Memoir," Mrs. Bush said she did her best to keep her opinions from the public while her husband was in office. But she revealed that she disagreed with him on two issues: She supported legal abortion and opposed the sale of assault weapons.

"I honestly felt, and still feel, the elected person's opinion is the one the public has the right to know," Mrs. Bush wrote. She also disclosed a bout with depression in the mid-1970s, saying she sometimes feared she would deliberately crash her car. She blamed hormonal changes and stress.

"Night after night, George held me weeping in his arms while I tried to explain my feelings," she wrote.

"I almost wonder why he didn't leave me."

She said she snapped out of it in a few months.

Mrs. Bush raised five children: George W., Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. A sixth child, 3-year-old daughter Robin, died of leukemia in 1953.q